France reports first human Shamonda virus case, says no health risk
Until now, the virus was considered non-transferable to humans, making the patient the first documented human case.
French authorities have confirmed that a patient who died at a Lyon hospital earlier in October was infected with the Shamonda virus, the first such report of the virus in a human.
In a statement on Thursday, the French Ministry of Agriculture stressed that there were no identifiable health risks to the general population at this time.
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Shamonda is an orthobunyavirus – a group of viruses primarily carried and spread by insects – transmitted to animals, mainly cattle, by biting midges of the genus Culicoides.
It was first detected in Nigeria in the 1960s, but has since been reported sporadically in East and Southern Africa, as well as Japan.
Until now, the virus was considered non-transmissible to humans, making the patient in France the first documented human case.
The French announcement said the leading hypothesis was that the patient was infected in eastern France, where the virus had circulated among animals this spring and summer.
“Clinical, biological and epidemiological investigations are continuing in conjunction with expertise in human, animal and environmental health,” the statement added.
Commenting on the patient, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the individual “was immunocompromised”, which made them more vulnerable to infection and severe disease.
“The French patient was in an area where the Shamonda virus was circulating in animals and Culicoides midges were also present,” Tedros said in a statement on X.
The WHO chief added that the UN health agency was in contact with French authorities who were trying to understand the source of the infection in the first human patient and the possible routes of transmission to determine the any potential risk to public health.
The French health ministry said the death of a person from the Shamonda virus was an “exceptional event”, which could be explained from the patients poor health.
The ministry said there was no reason to talk of a health “crisis”.
Shamonda was first confirmed in Europe in late July after genomic tests on sick cattle in southern Germany, Switzerland and eastern France.
A report from France’s weekly animal health surveillance bulletin said the virus had also been detected in Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and the United Kingdom’s Jersey.
