Global health and agriculture organizations are tracking a new medical discovery after a patient in France was diagnosed with the first recorded human case of the Shamonda virus.
Known previously as a virus passed from insects to farm animals, like cattle, the discovery of the virus in a human patient has prompted fresh research across the continent on the leap between animals and humans.
The infection was discovered in a patient who was being treated for a weakened immune system at a hospice in the city of Lyon before they died in early October, the French health authorities reported.
“Preliminary studies by the attending physician has led us to believe that the intense and serious cerebral complications observed in the patient prior to death are related to this virus,” according to the agency.
The new virus is a historic achievement for medicine, agricultural departments said but is primarily transmitted by biting midges between farm animals and does not appear to pose any greater health risk to the public.
First discovered in Nigeria in the mid-1960s, the Shamonda virus originally emerged and was first isolated in Nigeria, but the virus has previously been found in animals in various parts of Africa and Asia, and has been seen sporadically in herds elsewhere in the world.
Yet the current spread of the virus in a number of European countries this summer and a human case for the first time has drawn wide interest among epidemiologists.
In cattle, it is part of the same family of viruses as the Schmallenberg, which causes fever, depression, diarrhea, decreased milk production and fetal disease in cows.
As medics probe this lone human infection further, health bodies emphasize that ongoing precautions at the time of infection will work just as well now and that significant spread among humans is highly improbable.
Health agencies will probably keep close tabs on animals and midges in Europe to track the behaviour of the virus, as they will continue to monitor the situation.