Elephants also have their lightning and deadly diseases: herpesviruses.
And today, no vaccine protects them.
In an animal park like Pairi Daiza, in Belgium, which hosts 21 elephants from Asia and two from Africa, this scourge is, to say the least, worrying.
This is why the Belgian park foundation decided to work with the Lille start-up Vaxinano to find a vaccine against pachyderm herpes.
"This herpes does not cause a simple cold sore as in humans," explains the management of Pairi Daiza, in a press release.
It is one of the biggest causes of infant mortality in Asian elephants, both in the wild and in zoos.
(…) Young elephants lose their lives in more than 80% of cases and in just a few hours or a few days.
"
Protection of a species classified as "endangered"
Only supportive treatment exists.
This treatment had also made it possible to save a young elephant in Pairi Daiza, in June.
But it offers no guarantee of a cure.
To strengthen the protection of a species classified as "endangered" by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a first step consisted in opening a laboratory for the diagnosis of elephant herpes in Belgium. .
The next will be the development of a vaccine which will require lengthy research, "especially as the elephant herpesvirus is difficult to study in the laboratory", specifies Pairi Daiza.
A budget of 75,000 euros has been allocated for this research work.
This will be the work of Vaxinano, a biotechnology company based in Lille and specializing in the development of vaccines.
This start-up has already carried out a vaccination campaign among primates against toxoplasmosis.
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