Since publication of the Best Practice Guidelines for Health Monitoring and Disease Control in Great Ape Populations (Gilardi et al., 2015), great ape tourism has continued to gain in popularity, and landscape conversion continues on a steep trajectory. Concurrently, extensive research has been conducted on pathogens infecting wild great apes, including findings from recent Ebola and COVID-19 outbreaks. These events have provided opportunities to develop, apply and assess disease prevention planning in real-world scenarios, and also heightened a global sense of urgency around the importance of preventing human disease transmission to wild great apes. The purpose of this update is to provide new and additional information on great ape health, disease control and outbreak response, to complement the 2015 guidelines.