The first-ever elephant herpesvirus vaccine injected in Houston Zoo – Houston Public Media

Jackelin Reyna/Houston Zoo

A Houston Zoo elephant received the first-ever dose of an mRNA vaccine aimed to prevent herpesvirus in elephants on Tuesday, according to a Houston Zoo press release.

The Houston Zoo staff will monitor Tess, the 40-year-old Asian elephant, to study the effects of the vaccine against elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus, which has been the leading cause of death in Asian elephants born in North America since 1980, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

The vaccine resulted from a 15-year partnership between the Houston Zoo and Paul Ling, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine. Although he does not expect the vaccine to cure the disease, Ling said the vaccine aims to boost elephants' immunity against it.

Jackelin Reyna/Houston Zoo

"I would consider it a success if we can at a minimum eliminate lethal deaths caused by this virus," Ling said.

Tess will remain under observation for the next couple of weeks, and she is scheduled to receive a booster shot soon. Kristin Windle, the Houston Zoo elephant's supervisor, said two other young elephants are scheduled to receive the vaccine in the next couple of weeks.

"(Tess) is doing great," Windle said. "Weve kept a really close eye on her. As soon as she got the vaccine, we had veterinary staff that was there monitoring her to ensure that she had no reactions to the vaccine, and everything went great."

The groups partnership started when Mac, a young Houston Zoo elephant, died from the disease. Their partnership has helped develop new early detection techniques, which Windle said saved several young elephants.

Houston Zoo Veterinarian Maryanne Tocidlowski said early detection is critical to saving the elephants. EEHV causes blood leakage, which ultimately causes the organs to fail, she said. Usually, by the time the elephant presents physical symptoms, they can die in a matter of hours. Tocidlowski said they learned to avoid this through a weekly blood test.

"It takes a village to take care of our elephants," Tocidlowski said.

The disease started evolving millions of years ago, but the National Zoo diagnosed the first case in 1995. Today, EEHV poses the highest risk to young elephants, who have a mortality rate of at least 50%, according to the National Zoo.

According to the National Zoo, no total cure for herpesvirus exists so far in humans or animals. If the mRNA vaccine works well, it will spread to other zoos, Ling said.

"Its becoming increasingly recognized that there are many other zoos and elephants throughout the world, both those in human care and free-range that are getting infected and succumbing to this virus," Ling said. "The zoo wanted to become more proactive to do something about this."

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The first-ever elephant herpesvirus vaccine injected in Houston Zoo - Houston Public Media