The first confirmed case of Shamonda virus in a human has been confirmed by French authorities following the death of a patient earlier this month in Lyon.
Previously Shamonda virus, a condition that primarily infects livestock, was considered non-transmissible to humans.
The diagnosis was announced on Thursday in a statement by the French Ministry of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, which added that “no health risk to the general population has been identified at this time.”
Newsweek contacted the French Ministry of Agriculture for comment by email on Friday.
What We Know
A case of Shamonda virus was detected in a patient “with severe immunosuppression” who was being treated at a hospital in Lyon before dying in early October, said the French Ministry of Agriculture.
Their “working hypothesis” is that the patient caught the virus after being bitten by a Culicoides midge in eastern France, a region where Shamonda virus was “known to be circulating among animals during the spring and summer of 2026.”
The statement noted that though Shamonda, which was first identified in Nigeria in the 1960s, had been detected across Africa and Asia for several decades “no human cases had been documented until now.”
It described the case as “exceptional” due to the “severely immunocompromised patient,” adding: “It should be noted that, based on current knowledge of this virus, no health risk to the general population has been identified at this time.
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French authorities are continuing to conduct clinical, biological and epidemiological investigations into the case and have informed global health bodies including the World Health Organization and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
What Is Shamonda Virus
Shamonda Virus is an insect-borne virus that predominantly infects cattle and other livestock. It is transmitted mainly via the bites of Culicoides biting midges, which are small blood-sucking insects.
According to the World Organization for Animal Health, Shamonda Virus was first detected in Nigeria in 1965, though from the early 2000s it spread to other parts of Africa and Asia.
The first European cases of Shamonda Virus in animals were confirmed in late July in eastern France, since when cases have also been reported in agricultural animals in other countries including Italy, Germany, Spain and Ireland. There have been no confirmed Shamonda Virus cases in the United States.
Symptoms in Humans
Unsurprisingly, given only one infection has been confirmed in an immunocompromised individual, information about Shamonda Virus symptoms in humans remains patchy.
But health issues related to the brain in the patient prior to death were “highly likely to be linked to the Shamonda virus infection,” said the French Ministry of Agriculture.
Symptoms in Animals
The main symptoms of Shamonda Virus in animals are acute diarrhea, “a brief and transient” fever, a fall in digestive activity and a “temporary, sometimes significant, drop in milk production,” according to GDS Hauts-de-France, an animal health body representing livestock groups from three French departments.
The Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety warns that cases during pregnancy can lead to complications including “delayed fetal malformations or weak newborns.”
The Austrian agency also notes that horses infected with Shamonda Virus showed signs of “neurological symptoms,” though it noted this was based on testing of dead horses, and the virus has yet to be detected in a living horse.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Trevor Davies