{"id":865,"date":"2012-01-09T15:05:28","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T05:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=865"},"modified":"2012-01-19T15:19:54","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T05:19:54","slug":"source-sought-for-tarongas-tb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?p=865","title":{"rendered":"Source sought for Taronga’s TB"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Pak<\/a>An expert panel led by NSW Health is continuing work to determine the source of a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak at Taronga Zoo.\r\n\r\nIn February media reported the TB diagnosis of Pak Boon, one of Taronga\u2019s elephants.\r\n\r\nIn September Taronga issued a statement on its website which said a male chimp with the disease had been euthanased.\r\n\r\nThere have been no public health warnings about the presence of the disease at Taronga, drawing criticism from NSW Greens MP John Kaye, who said potential visitors to Taronga were denied the right to evaluate the risk of infection.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe elephants and the chimps are in enclosures that are 50 metres apart, and there are two public walkways in between,\u201d Kaye said.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is possible there is a risk to humans; not a great risk, but I think NSW Health and the zoo are making it impossible for clients to make their own assessments.\u201d\r\n\r\nKaye has called on Health Minister Jillian Skinner to force the zoo to warn visitors of the presence of TB in two species, and therefore the possibility that the infection spread from one to the other.\r\n\r\nHe added that he is particularly concerned about school groups.\r\n\r\n\u201cTeachers and principals have to sign off on the well-being of children without being given full information, so I will continue to put pressure on NSW Health,\u201d Kaye said.\r\n\r\n\u201cAustralia has an excellent track record for infection control regarding TB, and it would be a terrible thing to compromise that record to support the profitability of the zoo.\u201d\r\n\r\nTaronga Media Relations Manager, Mark Williams, denied that profits have been put before public health.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s no question of putting public health at risk, and the focus of the NSW Department of Health\u2019s assessor has been the safety of zoo visitors,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere is no active TB in the zoo among staff or animals, and the animals concerned are undergoing treatment.\u201d\r\n\r\nWilliams said Pak Boon has been on treatment for a year and is very healthy.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe one chimp that was diagnosed was euthanised due to poor general condition,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cNone of the other chimpanzees have TB, but they have been put on a preventative regime regardless.\u201d\r\n\r\nWilliams added there is no greater risk of infection in the zoo than there is in day-to-day life.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe have to be aware of that and look after our animals, our keepers and our visitors,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cI am glad Kaye and I share that concern, but the fact is the events have been carefully handled.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn regard to public notification, Kaye said there have been regular updates on the public notices section of the zoo\u2019s website.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe story has also been carried by the [Sydney Morning<\/em>] Herald<\/em>, so it has hardly been a secret.\u201d\r\n\r\nWilliams also responded to theories the disease may have jumped species via water droplets, transferred by high pressure hoses used to clean out enclosures.\r\n\r\n\u201cTaronga does not use high pressure hoses,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nAssistant Secretary of Animal Biosecurity in the Department of Agriculture, Andrew Cupit, said visitors to the zoo were not likely to contract TB.\r\n\r\n\u201cUsually you have got to be in direct contact with the animal,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou\u2019ve got more chance of catching from a person or going offshore.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThe risk would be with the keepers themselves, but I understand the zoo is monitoring the situation closely.\u201d\r\n\r\nRegarding the origin of the transmission, Cupit said the TB may have been transmitted through a keeper.\r\n\r\n\u201cTheoretically it is a possibility, or perhaps through shared feeding equipment,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt is worth noting that TB can remain in dormant in animals, and indeed humans, so it can be difficult to detect in quarantine.\r\n\r\n\u201cI believe in this instance the elephant became pregnant, and it is possible the stress of pregnancy caused the TB to become more active.\u201d\r\n\r\nCupit added that he believed Taronga \u201cprobably did as much as they could\u201d to make visitors aware of the situation.\r\n\r\n\u201cThey did not try to hide it, and there has been publicity around the incident since February,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nUniversity of New South Wales Medical Sciences research fellow, Fabio Luciani, echoed the Cupit’s sentiments and said the likelihood of TB transmission to the public is remote.\r\n\r\n\u201cMore likely is the potential transmission from animals to keepers,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cThough it is not easy to transmit non-active TB, it is theoretically possible.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s also important to note that there is very little knowledge about the transmission of TB from animals to humans.\u201d\r\n\r\nRegarding the source of the original infection, Luciani believes there are several possibilities.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe elephant could have been infected by a human or perhaps even soil or food;\u201d he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cRegarding TB cases in zoos, to the best of my knowledge elephants are always involved, which is interesting.\u201d\r\n\r\nSAM WORRAD<\/strong>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An expert panel led by NSW Health is continuing work to determine the source of a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak at Taronga Zoo. In February media reported the TB diagnosis of Pak Boon, one of Taronga\u2019s elephants. In September Taronga issued a statement on its website which said a male chimp with the disease had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[196,632,143,628,631,635,636,634,633,629,630,624,625,128],"class_list":["post-865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-196","tag-chimpanzee","tag-december","tag-december-2011","tag-elephant","tag-jillian-skinner","tag-john-kaye","tag-mark-williams","tag-nsw-health","tag-taronga","tag-taronga-zoo","tag-tb","tag-tuberculosis","tag-zoo"],"rise-blocks_total_comments":0,"rise-blocks_categories":[{"term_id":5,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":400,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":5,"category_count":400,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"rise-blocks_excerpt":"An expert panel led by NSW Health is continuing work to determine the source of a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak at Taronga Zoo. In February media reported the TB diagnosis of Pak Boon, one of Taronga\u2019s elephants. In September Taronga issued a statement on its website which said a male chimp with the disease had been euthanased. There have been no..","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"5":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?cat=5"}},"tags_names":{"196":{"name":"2011","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=2011"},"632":{"name":"chimpanzee","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=chimpanzee"},"143":{"name":"December","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=december"},"628":{"name":"December 2011","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=december-2011"},"631":{"name":"elephant","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=elephant"},"635":{"name":"Jillian Skinner","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=jillian-skinner"},"636":{"name":"John Kaye","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=john-kaye"},"634":{"name":"Mark Williams","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=mark-williams"},"633":{"name":"NSW health","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=nsw-health"},"629":{"name":"Taronga","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=taronga"},"630":{"name":"Taronga Zoo","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=taronga-zoo"},"624":{"name":"TB","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=tb"},"625":{"name":"tuberculosis","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=tuberculosis"},"128":{"name":"Zoo","link":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/?tag=zoo"}},"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":867,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions\/867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theveterinarian.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}