Trunkloads of Viruses

Elephant populations are under intense pressure internationally from habitat destruction and poaching for ivory andmeat. They also face pressure from infectious agents, including elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus 1 (EEHV1), which kills20 % of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) born in zoos and causes disease in the wild. EEHV1 is one of at least six distinct EEHV in a phylogenetic lineage that appears to represent an ancient but newly recognized subfamily (theDeltaherpesvirinae) in the family Herpesviridae. Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus 1 (EEHV1) causes a rap-idly progressing and usually fatal hemorrhagic disease that occurs in the wild in Asia and affects 20 % of Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) calves born in zoos in the United States and Europe (1). About 60 % of juvenile deaths of captive elephants are attributed to such infections. Development of control measures has been hampered by the lack of systems for culture of the virus in laboratories. Its genetic study has been restricted to analysis of blood, trunk wash fluid, and tissue samples collected during nec-ropsies. Fortunately, methods for amplifying DNA from unchar-acterized viruses through the use of degenerate PCR primers tha