Herpes is causing jumbo deaths at Koottoor elephant centre in Kerala
Exactly a week after a one-and-half year old elephant, Sreekutty, died in a rehabilitation centre in Kottoor, Thiruvananthapuram, one more baby elephant passed away. His name was Arjun and he was five years old. Both of them were infected by the dreaded herpes -- Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpes Virus (EEHV) – and died within days. There are three more baby elephants aged under 10 now infected with the EEHV at the centre.
“We can’t say where the virus came from. This is essentially a rehabilitation centre, so the elephants that reach here have either got lost from their herds or else got driven away by some natural calamity like a landslide. They could already be weak as Sreekutty and Arjun were,” says Neyyar Wildlife Warden JR Ani.
There is more than 80% mortality rate for herpes in Asian elephants under the age of 10. Herpes was first identified in an Asian elephant in 1995 in the Washington DC Zoo. However later research of tissue samples could trace it back to 1983.
“There is no effective antidote as of now. It affects babies, most of them dying within 48 hours of getting infected. It leaves the adult elephants alone, but they could act as carriers. That might be what happened here. The older elephants might have picked up the virus when they roamed to nearby woods. The virus is found to occur in natural wildlife. The older elephants might then have brought it back to the rehab centre from where the babies got infected,” Ani adds.
Symptoms include loss of appetite, sluggishness, blisters and facial edema. The virus quickly damages the inner tissues of the calves, causing internal bleeding and then cardiac arrest.
“After Sreekutty’s postmortem revealed that the cause of death was herpes, we had tested the other baby elephants at the centre. However, Arjun had then tested negative. It is later that he developed the symptoms and his condition quickly deteriorated. As it is, he was very weak,” Ani says.
The older elephants are being tested to find out if any of them carries the virus. “Doctors say that we need to have periodical tests.”
The three other elephants infected with the virus are two-and-a-half year old Kannan, one-and-a-half year old Amina and six year old Podichi. There are now nine baby elephants at the centre.