It looks like the outbreak among the bonobos I blogged about last week is over. From an update from Vanessa Woods:
…the flu is over. Semendwa’s baby died, making it 7 bonobos that we’ve lost in the last month, 4 definitely from the flu, maybe 5.
I want to take the time to thank everyone who donated. we raised over $8,000 which will all go to bonobo food and medicine. We still have a $25,000 shortfall for bonobo food which we will try to make by the end of the year. I’ll make sure Sheryl thanks everyone individually, but they might come up on later posts. We haven’t forgotten you.
Everyone here is absolutely exhausted. but the staff have just worked so hard to save everyone, and they were saving bonobos left and right.
there will be more posts, some from the vet to talk about the exact nature of the illness, soem in response to people who think it’s some kind of ebola, it’s not, it’s a 24 hour bug that is harmless in humans, but apparently sometimes fatal to bonobos. and all the bonobos who will be released are in QUARANTINE and have been for six months so none of them was touched.
Vanessa is posting updates at the Friends of Bonobos site when she can get a good connection or when she can relay emails to people stateside. You can keep up with the news here.
Originally published April 7, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.