First Monkey B Virus Death In China; Yet Another Pandemic?

New Delhi: A 53-year-old vet in China died of Monkey B virus on May 27, a month after he dissected two dead monkeys in early March. He worked for an institution researching on non-human primates and had started showing early-onset symptoms of nausea and vomiting. He had also sought treatment in several hospitals, reported News 18 quoting Global Times.

The Monkey B virus

The first case of B virus infection was reported in 1933 when a laboratory worker was accidentally bitten by a monkey and later recovered from the bite. But, he fell ill of febrile disease with progressive symptoms of ascending myelitis and died 15 days after the first symptoms of involvement of the central nervous system (CNS), the report added.

Transmission

It can be transmitted via direct contact and exchange of bodily secretions. Following the exposures involving macaques B virus infection in 1933, more than two dozen human deaths were reported and five of those in the last 12 years. Most of these people got infected after they were bitten or scratched by a monkey, or when tissue or fluids from a monkey got on their broken skin, such as by needle stick or cut.

Is it dangerous?

According to a report published in the US National Library of Medicine, BV has a propensity to invade the central nervous system when transmitted to humans. It has a fatality rate of 70-80 per cent, News18 reported.

Symptoms

The initial symptoms usually develop around 1-3 weeks after exposure to the virus. Symptoms of this virus are similar to flu virus infections that include fever, chills, muscle ache, fatigue, and headache.

According to researchers, occupational workers are particularly at risk of the virus.

Is it a pandemic in the making?

Research on the virus suggests that it is difficult to be transmitted from one human to another thus making it less potent when compared to the scale of a global pandemic, the report said.