By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | January
11, 2018 01:42pm ET
Monkeys infected with the herpes B virus may
be symptom-free, but in people the virus can be fatal.
Visitors to Florida's Silver Springs State
Park should avoid monkeying around with the reserve's feral macaques; officials
warn that the primates carry a strain of the herpes virus that can be fatal to
humans.
About 175 free-roaming rhesus macaques (Macaca
mulatta) inhabit the park, descended from a population of around a dozen
animals that were released in the 1930s to promote local tourism. Hundreds more
of the macaques can be found wandering the areas adjacent to the park.
Now, researchers from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) report that about 25 percent of the monkeys carry
macacine herpesvirus 1 (McHV-1), which causes only mild symptoms, if any, in
monkeys but can be deadly in people. [10
Deadly Diseases That Hopped Across Species]
The scientists also discovered that as many
as 14 percent of the monkeys shed DNA from the virus in their saliva,
presenting a risk of virus transmission to humans, the researchers reported in
a new study, which was published online in the February 2018 issue of the
journal Emerging
Infectious Diseases.
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