s carriers of the virus. Moreover, molecular analyses showed a great diversity among the viruses present in these monkeys, and five new SIV lineages were isolated and identified. These results bring to 30 the number of monkey species liable to SIV infection and provide the first evidence that SIV is widespread and extremely diverse among wild primates in Cameroon.

This study suggests a high degree of human exposure to SIV through hunting and handling monkeys for their meat, which is a common practice in Sub-Saharan Africa. Transmission of SIVs is most likely through contact with infected blood or other secretions and possibly bites from pet animals. Bushmeat hunting is ongoing for hundreds of years, but the bushmeat trade has increased in the last decades. Commercial logging has led to road constructions, human migration, and the development of social and economic networks into remote forest areas. These socioeconomic changes, combined with our estimates of siv prevalence and genetic complexity in wild living primates, would suggest that the magnitude of human exposure to siv has increased, as have the social and environmental conditions that would be expected to support the emergence of new zoonotic infections.

Studies have shown that several types of SIV could replicate in human lymphocytes, thus suggesting that a potential for human contamination exists, or even for an HIV-3 to appear. Recombination between newly introduced SIVs and circulating HIVs poses still another human risk to novel zoonoses, contributing to diversification of the already extensive range of AIDS viruses which are currently circulating among humans in Africa. There is at present, no evidence of cross-species transmission of these newly identified viral strains to humans, but to determine whether additional zoonotic transmissions of SIVs have already occurred, virus type- and/or lineage-specific immuno and PCR assays will have to be developed. Such work should receive high
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Contact: Hlne Deval
deval@paris.ird.fr
33-01-48-03-75-19
Institut de Recherche Pour le Dveloppement
2-Apr-2002

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