Oral Presentation 64th International Conference of the Wildlife Disease Association 2015

Macacine Herpesvirus 1 (B virus) in Wild-caught Long-Tailed Macaques (Macaca fascicularis) Following Capture and Transport in Malaysia (#81)

Mei-Ho Lee 1 2 , Melinda K Rostal 1 , Tom Hughes 1 2 , Frankie Sitam 3 , Chee-Yen Lee 1 2 , Jeffrine Japning 3 , Mallory Harden 4 , Anthony Griffiths 5 , Misliah Basir 3 , Nathan Wolfe 6 , Jonathan H Epstein 1 , Peter Daszak 1
  1. EcoHealthAlliance, New York, NY, United States
  2. Conservation Medicine Limited, Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory, Malaysia
  3. Department of Wildlife and National Parks of Peninsular Malaysia, PERHILITAN, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  4. Medical School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
  5. Department of Virology and Immunology and, SNPRC, Texas Biomedical Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, USA
  6. Metabiota, San Francisco, CA, USA

Macacine herpesvirus 1 (MaHV1; B virus) is a zoonotic virus that naturally infects macaques (Macaca spp.) and can cause fatal encephalitis in humans. In Peninsular Malaysia, wild macaques are abundant and translocation is used to mitigate human-macaque conflict. Most adult macaques are infected with MaHV1, though the risk of transmission to wildlife personnel who handle them during capture and translocation is unknown.  We investigated MaHV1 shedding in 392 long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) following capture and translocation by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP), Peninsular Malaysia. PCR was performed on urogenital and oropharyngeal samples to detect MaHV1 DNA. Overall, 39% of macaques were shedding MaHV1 DNA, with no difference in detection rates between sample types. Males were more likely to be shedding at the time of sampling than females, with 44.1% ± 6.6% (n = 220) and 33.1% ± 7.1% (n = 169) prevalence respectively (Z-Statistic = 2.1925, df = 1, p = 0.0001). Additionally, males were significantly more likely to be shedding in saliva than females, with 26.4% ± 5.8% (n = 220) and 16.0% ± 5.5% (n = 169) prevalence respectively (Z-Statistic = 2.4575, df = 1, p = 0.007). There was no significant difference in shedding status among age groups: 37.6% ± 6.3% (n = 221) in adults, 38.8% ± 10.6% (n = 80) in sub-adults and 43.8% ± 10.3% (n = 89) in juveniles.  This study demonstrates that MaHV1 was shed by a significant proportion of macaques following capture and transport and suggests that personnel handling macaques under these circumstances may be at risk of MaHV1 exposure.