Health Monitoring and Disease Prevention in Great Ape Populations

Citation: Gilardi, KV, Gillespie, TR, Leendertz, FH, Macfie, EJ, Travis, DA, Whittier, CA & Williamson, EA (2015).  Best Practice Guidelines for Health Monitoring and Disease Control in Great Ape Populations. IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group, Gland, Switzerland.

These guidelines provide governments, policy makers, conservation practitioners, researchers, great ape tourism professionals and funding agencies with recommendations of best practices for great ape health monitoring and disease prevention. It is critical that tourism and research projects involving close proximity between great apes and people assess the risks entailed, and establish and implement disease prevention and control measures. Disease prevention should be regarded as a top priority, recognizing that it is easier and more economical to prevent the introduction of an infectious agent into a population, than to attempt to treat, control or eradicate a health problem once introduced. The guidelines summarize our current understanding of great ape health issues.

 

Best Practice Guidelines for Health Monitoring and Disease Control in Great Ape Populations  PDF  7.5 MB http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2015.SSC-OP.56.en

Guidelines for best practices in health monitoring and disease control of great ape populations  PDF 6.5 MB http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2016.SSC-OP.56.fr

Panduan Pengawasan Kesehatan dan Pengendalian Penyakit pada Populasi Kera Besar  PDF 6.2 MB
http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2016.SSC-OP.56.id

To request a paper copy of these guidelines, please contact Jill Lucena at jlucena@rewild.org

 

A key document that preceded the IUCN guidelines for great ape tourism and disease prevention is available below:

Homsy, J. (1999). Ape Tourism and Human Diseases: How close should we get?  International Gorilla Conservation Programme, Nairobi.

Homsy, J. (1999). Tourism, Great Apes and Human Disease: Where is the Line? International Gorilla Conservation Programme, Nairobi.

 

Please also visit the Protect Great Apes From Disease website, where you can download posters and other education materials in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. This conservation education initiative is aimed primarily at tourists and researchers.

https://www.iucngreatapes.org/protect-great-apes-from-disease

Download education and training materials here: https://www.iucngreatapes.org/training-materials

 

Guidance developed for the COVID-19 pandemic is available  here

The Primate Specialist Group gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Arcus Foundation and the US Fish & Wildlife Service for the production and publication of the IUCN guidelines.