Monkey virus jumps to humans

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Article Date: 20 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT

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The discovery of a new class of monkey virus jumping into humans has reinforced claims that HIV came from bushmeat hunting.

It also suggests that viruses jump species much more often than thought - raising the risk that new viral diseases will eventually develop in humans.

The simian foamy viruses newly found in the bushmeat hunters by US and Cameroonian scientists are probably harmless, but follow up studies are planned to check whether they spread between people or cause disease.

'Our research shows the transmission of retroviruses to humans is not limited to a few, isolated occurrences like those that gave rise to HIV,' says Nathan Wolfe of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who lead the study.

'It's a regular phenomenon, and a cause for concern,' he says.

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