PARIS, Oct 22 (Reuters) – French health authorities said they had detected the Shamonda virus usually affecting livestock in a human for the first time in a patient who later died, while adding that they saw no risk to the general population at this stage.
Shamonda virus is an insect-borne Orthobunyavirus primarily affecting livestock, particularly cattle, and transmitted by biting midges.
First identified in Nigeria in the mid-1960s, it has since been detected sporadically in animals in Africa and Japan. It has been spreading among several European countries this year.
The virus had until now been considered non-transmissible to humans, the French government said.
The leading hypothesis is that the patient may have been infected in eastern France, where the virus had been circulating among animals during spring and summer 2026.
(Reporting by Sybille de la Hamaide and Makini Brice)
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