UC Office of the President Recent Work Title Suspected Exposure to Filoviruses Among People Contacting Wildlife in Southwestern Uganda

Free-ranging nonhuman primates are frequent sources of zoonotic pathogens due to their physiologic similarity and in many tropical regions, close contact with humans. Many highrisk disease transmission interfaces have not been monitored for zoonotic pathogens due to difficulties inherent to invasive sampling of free-ranging wildlife. Non-invasive surveillance of nonhuman primates for pathogens with high potential for spillover into humans is therefore critical for understanding disease ecology of existing zoonotic pathogen burdens and identifying communities where zoonotic diseases are likely to emerge in the future. We developed a non-invasive oral sampling technique using ropes distributed to nonhuman primates to target viruses shed in the oral cavity, which through bite wounds and discarded food, could be transmitted to people. Optimization was performed by testing paired rope and oral swabs from laboratory colony rhesus macaques for rhesus cytomegalovirus (RhCMV) and simian foamy virus (SFV) and implementing the technique with free-ranging terrestrial and arboreal nonhuman primate species in Uganda and Nepal. Both ubiquitous DNA and RNA viruses, RhCMV and SFV, were detected in oral samples collected from ropes distributed to laboratory colony macaques and SFV was detected in free-ranging macaques and olive baboons. Our study describes a technique that can be used for disease surveillance in free-ranging nonhuman primates and, potentially, other wildlife species when invasive sampling techniques may not be feasible.

自由活动的非人灵长类动物由于生理上的相似性，并且在许多热带地区与人类密切接触，常常是人畜共患病病原体的来源。由于对自由活动的野生动物进行侵入性采样存在固有困难，许多高风险的疾病传播接触面尚未对人畜共患病病原体进行监测。因此，对非人灵长类动物进行非侵入性监测，以发现那些极有可能传播给人类的病原体，对于了解现有人畜共患病病原体负担的疾病生态学以及确定未来可能出现人畜共患病的群落至关重要。我们开发了一种非侵入性的口腔采样技术，通过将绳子分发给非人灵长类动物来采集口腔中排出的病毒，这些病毒通过咬伤伤口和丢弃的食物可能会传播给人类。通过对实验室养殖的恒河猴的成对绳子和口腔拭子进行恒河猴巨细胞病毒（RhCMV）和猴泡沫病毒（SFV）检测，并在乌干达和尼泊尔对自由活动的陆生和树栖非人灵长类物种实施该技术来进行优化。在从分发给实验室养殖的猴子的绳子上采集的口腔样本中检测到了普遍存在的DNA和RNA病毒——RhCMV和SFV，并且在自由活动的猴子和橄榄狒狒中检测到了SFV。我们的研究描述了一种可用于对自由活动的非人灵长类动物以及在侵入性采样技术不可行时可能用于其他野生动物物种进行疾病监测的技术。