An outbreak of hepatitis in marmosets in a zoological collection

Abstract

12 marmosets of 3 different species died of hepatitis during a period of 5 months. The lesions closely resembled those of virus hepatitis in man but material from these animals and from in-contact marmosets failed to reveal the presence of hepatitis A. This together with certain aspects of the epidemiology of the disease suggests that the outbreak was not caused by a virus of human origin but possibly by a virus indigenous to the marmoset or tamarin.

Spontaneous inclusion body hepatitis in young tamarins: I. Morphological study

“…Ultrastructural descriptions of spontaneous hepatitis in tamarins are not available from earlier reports (Sauer & Bishop, 1963;Parks & Melnick, 1969;Lucke & Bennett, 1982).Although the present tissues were not optimally prepared for electron microscopy, two rather distinct ultrastructural features of the inclusions are evident: tubulovesicular and sponge-like structures. The latter resemble viral nucleoprotein aggregation, but an artefact cannot be ruled out.…”

“…There are several reports of experimental infection in marmosets and tamarins with human hepatiti~viruses, but only a few on spontaneous hepatitis (Sauer & Bishop, 1963;Parks & Melnick, 1969;Lucke & Bennett, 1982;Montali et al, 1989;Ramsay et al, 1989). The infectious agent was never determined, but a virus indigenom to marmosets was presumed.…”

Zoonoses and Other Human Health Hazards

“…The apparent ease with which LCMV is transmitted to humans also occurs in a variety of other laboratory animal species; hamsters, guinea pigs, swine, dogs, and nonhuman primates, especially callitrichids, which readily sustain natural infections. In the case of the callitrichids, there have been numerous reports of epizootic infectious hepatitis (callitrichid hepatitis) due to LCMV, with a high mortality rate in zoological parks in both the United States and England over the past two decades (Lucke and Bennett 1982;Montali et al 1989;Stephensen et al 1990Stephensen et al , 1991Stephensen et al , 1995. Rodent (mouse) infestations of these zoos and/or the supplementation of the diets of tamarins and marmosets with suckling mice, a common practice (Richter et al 1984), are potentially rich sources for LCMV.…”