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. 2019 Jul 5;14(7):e0219288.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219288. eCollection 2019.

Survival analysis of confirmed elephant endotheliotropic herpes virus cases in Thailand from 2006 - 2018

Khajohnpat Boonprasert  1 , Veerasak Punyapornwithaya  1   2 , Pallop Tankaew  1 , Taweepoke Angkawanish  3 , Supaphen Sriphiboon  4 , Chatchote Titharam  1   5 , Janine L Brown  6 , Chaleamchat Somgird  1   5
Affiliations

Survival analysis of confirmed elephant endotheliotropic herpes virus cases in Thailand from 2006 - 2018

Khajohnpat Boonprasert et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) has been a known cause of death of young elephants in Thailand for over a decade. In this study, we report on the demography, disease characteristics and mortality of 58 elephants with confirmed EEHV hemorrhagic disease between January 2006 and August 2018 using retrospective data subjected to survival analysis. Median age of EEHV presentation was 29 months, and the mortality rate was 68.97% with a median survival time of 36 h. Most EEHV cases occurred in the north of Thailand, the region where most of the country's captive elephants reside. The hazard ratio analysis identified application of medical procedures and antiviral medications as being significant factors correlated to the risk of death. Our results indicate a need to focus EEHV monitoring efforts on young elephants and to follow current protocols that advise starting treatments before clinical signs appear.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Numbers of confirmed EEHV cases in each year from January 2006 to August 2018, both survivors and non-survivors.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Presentation of clinical features in EEHV confirmed cases.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Survival curve by Kaplan-Meier presented median survival time at 36 hours (n = 21).
Fig 4
Fig 4. Hazard ratio estimated along with confidence intervals and p-values for each variable.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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