22% of the mountain gorillas (Gorila beringei beringei) from impervious Bwindi National Park, in Uganda, are infected with E. coli, of human origin and with resistance to at least, two antibiotics. When the comparison is made with wild gorillas, who do not have any contact with humans, nor guards, scientists or eco tourists, the contamination level drops to 2%.

In the ecotourism system applied with mountain gorillas, in Uganda and also in Rwanda and Congo, the forest guards get near them, but do not have any physical contact. They keep the tourists in a distance of a few meters of the group of gorillas that has been observed for the maximum of one hour. But these precautions have not been enough to avoid the transmission of human origin bacterias to primates.

The work that raised this conclusion was developed by veterinarian doctor Innocent Rwego, from Makerere University, in Kampala, capital of Uganda.

This eco tourism that has been practiced in a large scale with the mountain gorillas results in money and jobs to several African countries, and allows that the local population provide a certain protection to their fund resource, the gorillas, who used so suffer too much, and today suffer in a minor scale, with hunting and destruction of their habitat.