Abstract
It is now known that all human retroviruses have a non-human primate counterpart. It has been reported that the presence of these retroviruses in humans is the result of interspecies transmission. Several authors have described the passage of a simian retrovirus, simian foamy virus (SFV), from primates to humans. To better understand this retroviral “zoonosis” in natural settings, we evaluated the presence of SFV in both captive and wild non-human primates and in humans at high risk, such as hunters and people bitten by a non-human primate, in Gabon, central Africa. A high prevalence of SFV was found in blood samples from non-human primates and in bush meat collected across the country. Mandrills were found to be highly infected with two distinct strains of SFV, depending on their geographical location. Furthermore, samples collected from hunters and non-human primate laboratory workers showed clear, extensive cross-species transmission of SFV. People who had been bitten by mandrills, gorillas and chimpanzees had persistent SFV infection with low genetic drift. Thus, SFV is presumed to be transmitted from non-human primates mainly through severe bites, involving contact between infected saliva and blood. In this review, we summarize and discuss our five-year observations on the prevalence and dissemination of SFV in humans and non-human primates in Gabon.
Highlights
Foamy viruses are members of the Spumavirus genus of the Retroviridae family [1]
In our studies in Gabon, we found that simian foamy virus (SFV) is highly endemic in mandrills and in other monkey species and that the virus can be transmitted to humans
Our findings suggest that cross-species transmission of SFV is widespread in central Africa, especially in villages and settlements in lowland forest regions like those in Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Congo and the Central African Republic, where hunting for bush meat is frequent
Summary
Foamy viruses are members of the Spumavirus genus of the Retroviridae family [1]. These exogenous complex retroviruses are highly prevalent in several animal species, including felines, bovines and equines, in which they cause persistent infections [2,3,4,5,6]. It was shown that non-human primates living in the wild, comprising various species of monkey and ape in Africa (mandrills, gorillas, chimpanzees) and Asia (species of macaques), have a high prevalence of simian foamy virus (SFV) infection [10,11,12]. Foamy viruses have been considered to be non-pathogenic in naturally and experimentally infected animals [28,29] and did not appear to cause disease in the few accidentally infected humans who received long-term medical and biological follow-up [14,17,19,27,30,31].
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