Beware the Elephant Sneeze

If this elephant has tuberculosis, this circus performer better be careful / by Marie's Shots via Flickr
How can anyone who’s seen an elephant at a circus, zoo, or on the African savannah deny the allure of these gentle giants? They’re majestic, compassionate, can pass tuberculosis to humans . . . wait a minute. What? Maybe these beasts aren’t so benign after all.

At a nonprofit elephant refuge in Tennessee, what began as a routine screening for the tuberculosis bacteria ended with the startling discovery: 13 employees that had previously tested negative now tested positive for the disease. Turns out, the culprit was an elephant infected with the tuberculosis bacteria, according to researchers from the Center of Disease Control, the Tennessee Department of Health, and Vanderbilt University, who published their findings in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Tuberculosis, or TB for short, is an infectious disease spread through the air through coughs, sneezes, or saliva. TB is difficult to detect in elephants and can lie latent for long periods of time. To make matters worse, the bacterium are especially prevalent in captive elephants: the study notes that in 2009 about 12 percent of the Asian elephants and 2 percent of the African elephants tested positive for the bacteria in North America.

From 2004 to 2006, the Tennessee refuge received multiple elephants from an exotic animal farm in Illinois, several of which had a history of TB. After time in quarantine and testing, all the elephants at the refuge tested negative—until 2009, when one of the tests came back positive.

Of the 13 refuge employees who contracted the bacterium later that year, five were elephant caregivers, two were maintenance workers and three were administrators. How did administrators contract TB? Caregivers and maintenance workers swept hay, sawdust, and excrement, and the entire barn was cleaned with a high pressure water sprayer, which created a long lasting dense mist—perfect for spreading the bacteria. The administrative buildings are adjacent to the barn and unfiltered air flowed between the two buildings, where the administrators did not wear respirators.

As awful as this outbreak sounds, elephants have been sporadically reported to transmit TB to humans since the 1990s. This is one of the first studies to definitively link the transmission of TB from elephants to humans.

The study advocates for stricter safety guidelines for those working with elephants with TB and more research to detect infections in elephants. The African elephant is recognized as threatened and the Asian elephant as endangered. More accurate testing and prevention would be beneficial to the elephant species, their caregivers, and the future circus ringleaders among us.