A man has died after contracting a virus in France which has never before been detected in humans.
Shamonda virus, which is spread by midges and causes infection in livestock, was detected in a patient who died in early October, French authorities have said.
They said the patient was already ‘severely immunocompromised’ and there was currently no risk to the wider public.
The virus has until now been considered non-transmissible to humans. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said it was ‘carefully monitoring the situation.’
It said: ‘ECDC is in contact with the French authorities and European partners to investigate the potential public health implications of this first human infection.
‘The only infection so far has been in a patient receiving treatment for a serious illness that made them more susceptible to infection and complications than the general population.’
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The unnamed man died in early October, and investigations are underway to find out how he contracted it.
Shamonda virus has been found in European farm animals since the summer.
In animals, clinical signs were reported from June, and the virus was identified in late July.
The ECDC said it has since been detected in farm animals in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland, as well as Jersey.
Dr Ben Brennan, group leader and senior lecturer at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, said: ‘This is an important scientific finding, as it is the first reported human infection with Shamonda virus.
‘However, it is important to put this into perspective. The patient had a serious underlying illness that left them particularly vulnerable to infections, and we do not yet know whether Shamonda virus contributed to their death.’
He added: ‘Finding a virus in a severely immunocompromised patient does not necessarily mean it poses a significant risk to otherwise healthy individuals.
‘Based on the information currently available, there is no reason for the general UK public to be unduly concerned.’
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia (UEA), said the disease is ‘primarily a problem in less economically developed countries’, so it’s hard to know for certain that other cases in humans have happened or not.
He said severely immunocompromised people can be susceptible to infections that would not cause any problem in other people.
‘The risk that this virus goes on to cause more widespread problems is very small, but if I were involved in the investigation, I would want to check contacts to make sure no one else has picked it up,’ he added.
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