Key result
EEHV1A hemorrhagic disease affects ~8% of US juvenile Asian elephants annually.
Why the study?
Measures of disease frequency have not been rigorously established for EEHV in any elephant population.
Observational (n=234)
Yes
This study establishes the first rigorous measures of disease frequency for EEHV infection and hemorrhagic disease in the US elephant population, highlighting EEHV1A and EEHV3A as the most prevalent threats to Asian and African elephants, respectively.
Provides first US incidence benchmark for EEHV1A; hypothesis-generating for prevention trials in captive Asian elephants.
) elephants in human care. Measures of disease frequency have not been rigorously established for EEHV in any elephant population. The objective of this retrospective descriptive epidemiologic study was to determine period prevalence, cumulative incidence, and incidence rate (IR) for EEHV infection and EEHV-HD in the US elephant population between 2014 and 2024. A case of EEHV infection was defined as an elephant of any age with an episode of EEHV viremia with levels >1,000 viral genome equivalents (vge)/ml, and a case of EEHV-HD was defined as a juvenile elephant with EEHV viremia levels >5,000 vge/ml, along with the presence of clinical signs, blood work abnormalities, or pathologic evidence suggesting vasculopathy. After institutional approval for data transfer, deidentified whole-blood EEHV qPCR results from the National Zoo Elephant Herpesvirus Laboratory were analyzed. The data originated from 30 zoos, encompassing 234 elephants, and included >23,000 PCR reactions. EEHV1A and 3A were the most prevalent and incident EEHV types for Asian and African elephants, respectively. Analyses indicated that if 100 juvenile Asian elephants were monitored over 1 yr, 7.91 new cases of EEHV1A-HD would occur in the United States. Similarly, 4.81 new cases of EEHV3A-HD would be expected to occur if 100 juvenile African elephants were monitored over 1 yr in the United States. EEHV6-HD appears to pose an underreported threat to African elephants with an IR of 1.46/100 elephant years.
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Bercier et al. (2026) conducted an observational in Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus infection and hemorrhagic disease (n=234). Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) was evaluated on Incidence rate of EEHV hemorrhagic disease. Between 2014 and 2024, the incidence rate of EEHV1A hemorrhagic disease was 7.91 per 100 elephant years in juvenile Asian elephants in the United States.
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