Two new viruses? In the first instance, China has reported its first known human infection with the ‘Monkey B Virus’ (BV), after a 53-year-old biomedical researcher from Beijing became infected following his dissection of two dead monkeys in March.
He died? The man, who worked in a primate breeding facility, began feeling nauseous and vomiting a month later, developing a fever and neurological issues. He died on May 27, although the Chinese Centre for Disease Control (China CDC) has only just confirmed this, adding that two of his close contacts have tested negative.
The virus is rare? Also known as ‘herpes B’, the virus, is common among macaque monkeys, but is rare in humans, with less than 100 reported human infections since the first case of primate-to-human transmission in 1932, when a researcher was bitten on the hand by a seemingly healthy macaque, but died 15 days later. Experts say that although there are likely to have been other cases not identified, it is a rare for humans to contract the virus.