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Lainé quickly noticed that the elephants’ caretakers, called mahouts, were at the center of disease surveillance policies, ultimately responsible for implementing orders of the state. Veterinarians do routine visits, he explains, but they can’t access all elephants and, so, rely on the mahouts to report on their animals’ health. For the latter, the relationship with their elephants is very strong: they consider them part of the family, watch them grow up, and can observe the smallest changes in their health that could indicate disease. A mahout may notice, for instance, that the color of an elephant’s skin has changed, something that a vet making a rare visit would be unlikely to see.
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