Eosinophilic gastroenteritis in African elephant (Loxodanta africana)

Abstract

Elephant conservation in Africa is currently among the important continental agenda due to the current trend of declining elephant population accelerated by human activities such as poaching, and encroachment to their habitat. Amon the implemented efforts to support elephant  conservation includes studying anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic factors which are likely to adversely affect the health and population dynamics of African elephants (Loxodanta africana) and device mitigation measures. This report describes clinical events observed in a 6 year male  elephant that died on the course of clinical interventions at a sanctuary within Mkomazi National Park following three month of illness. The cause of illness was suspected to be unidentified gastrointestinal parasites. Ante mortem and Postmortem examination revealed presence of clinical features suggestive of parasitic worm infestations including dullness, in appetence, anaemia, oedema and eosinophilic infiltration in the intestinal epithelial and sub epithelial tissues. However, eosinophilic infiltration can also occur in absence of parasites and is usually associated with food related  hypersensitity reactions. In the later, lesions are usually restricted along the gastrointestinal tract and the condition is described as eosinophilic gastroenteritis. Nonetheless, the description is sometimes based on histo-morphological appearance rather than the aetiology. Interestingly,  helminths were not detected by either faecal samples analysis or gross postmortem examinations. Faecal and postmortem results indicates that either the cause of the observed illness was different from the anticipated parasitic infestations or the parasites could actually be present in the  animal but could not be detected due to human error in the course of sample handling and or therapeutic interventions. A different and more comprehensive approach should be considered for similar and future cases to facilitate timely and effective clinical interventions.

Key words: Eosinophils, Gastroenteritis, Leukocyte, Parasites, Inflammation