After Shamonda virus spread among European livestock this year, France confirmed the world’s first documented human infection in a hospitalized patient. The man later died, but officials said he had a serious unrelated illness and a severely weakened immune system.
Authorities suspect a biting midge infected him in eastern France, where the virus circulated among animals during spring and summer 2026. The patient, reportedly in his 60s, had been receiving treatment in Lyon when doctors identified the infection.
The World Health Organization is working with French authorities to determine how the infection occurred and whether it poses any wider risk. So far, officials have found no evidence of cattle-to-human or human-to-human transmission.
“Based on current information and knowledge of the transmission of closely related viruses, this is an isolated human case, and it is unlikely to lead to wider spread at this time,” WHO said in its current assessment.
Shamonda is an orthobunyavirus spread mainly to animals by Culicoides biting midges and is most commonly detected in cattle. It has also been found in horses, alpacas, sheep and goats.
Scientists first identified the virus in Nigeria in the mid-1960s, with later detections in parts of Africa and Japan. Europe confirmed its first livestock infections in July 2026 after genomic testing of sick cattle in Germany, Switzerland and France.
The virus has since appeared in several other European countries. In cattle, it can cause diarrhea, weakness, appetite loss and occasional fever, while one French dairy study recorded milk-production declines of up to 75%.
French health officials described the human infection as scientifically unprecedented but said there is no current public-health alert for the general population.
No confirmed Shamonda virus case has been documented in the Philippines in the official and scientific records reviewed so far. In Asia, the virus has been identified in Japan, including confirmed isolates from cattle and biting midges in Kagoshima and Miyazaki in 2002; more recent research also detected Shamonda-related reassortant viruses in cattle on Yonaguni Island, Japan’s westernmost territory.
