Macacine alphaherpesvirus 1 (B Virus) Infection in Humans, Japan, 2019

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

T he herpesvirus Macacine alphaherpesvirus 1 (her- pes B virus, or B virus) is ubiquitous in macaque monkeys.Although macaque monkeys do not usually show symptoms when infected with B virus, humans show severe disease, including encephalitis and encephalomyelitis, and death frequently results from infection with B virus from monkeys (1).However, B virus infection of humans is rare.Infection can occur after being bitten or scratched by a macaque monkey that is actively shedding the virus or through direct contact with bodily fluids or contaminated laboratory materials.Since B virus infection was first reported in 1934, more than 50 cases have been reported, mainly in North America, and 29 cases have been confirmed, including a recent case in China (2,3).In most cases in which a specific macaque species was identified, patients had been exposed to rhesus macaques, rather than other species of monkey (e.g., cynomolgus macaques, African green monkeys, Vervet monkeys, or Sykes monkeys) (2).In this study, 2 patients in Japan with chronic and long-term neurologic diseases were tested for