French Health Officials Say a Cattle Virus Has Infected a Person for the First Time

France's health and agriculture ministries said Oct. 22, 2026, that Shamonda virus, a virus of cattle spread by biting midges, has been found in a human being for the first time. The patient, whose immune system was severely weakened and who was being treated at the Hospices Civils de Lyon for a serious illness, died in early October 2026.

The two ministries said the virus had until now been considered not transmissible to people, and that, based on current knowledge, no health risk to the general population has been identified to date. They called it an exceptional case in a patient with heavily suppressed immunity.

The working hypothesis in the joint release is that the patient was bitten by a Culicoides midge in eastern France, a region where the virus was circulating in animals in spring and summer 2026. The ministries said investigations carried out so far indicate that the brain complications seen before the patient's death were very probably linked to the Shamonda infection. Clinical, laboratory and epidemiological work is continuing, and France has notified the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

Shamonda virus was first detected in Nigeria in the mid-1960s, the ministries said, and until this year had been reported only sporadically in cattle in West, East and southern Africa and in Japan. It was identified in Europe for the first time in the summer of 2026, in dairy herds in Germany and Switzerland and on French cattle farms. Sporadic infections of small ruminants and horses were recorded in France over the same period.

On a separate animal-health page published the same day, the agriculture ministry said no vaccine exists and nothing available clears the virus from an infected animal. That page also says there is no evidence of meaningful spread directly between animals, apart from a pregnant cow passing the virus to her calf, and that no scientific data so far document transmission through meat, milk or products made from them. The impact on affected herds is judged low for now.