CHIMPANZEES and gorillas harbour previously unknown herpes viruses that may
be poised to jump species into humans, as happened with HIV. The viruses,
discovered by French researchers, are closely related to the one that causes a
type of skin tumour in humans called Kaposi’s sarcoma.
Kaposi’s is a frequent complication of AIDS, but it is also endemic among
people in Central Africa. Viruses similar to the Kaposi’s virus have been found
in macaques, so Antoine Gessain at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and his
colleagues in Cameroon and Gabon began looking for related viruses in our
closest relatives, the great…
