 The first case of a fatal form of the disease was documented in 1995 , though tissue samples from as early as the 1980s have since tested positive for the virus , and localized skin lesions in wild African elephants were recorded in the 1970s . Since 1995 , there have been over fifty documented disease cases in North America and Europe , of which only nine have been successfully cured . Those affected are mostly young animals born in captivity , though a small number of older wild @-@ born adults held in zoos have died , and a number of cases caused by the same pathogenic type of EEHV have been identified in both orphan and wild calves in Asian elephant populations . 
