Recovery of Cytopathogenic Agent from Chimpanzees with Goryza

Abstract

SummaryA virus was recovered from throat materials of a chimpanzee with coryza during an epizootic of respiratory disease in a colony of these animals. The new agent produced degenerative changes in tissue culture, but was not pathogenic for common laboratory animals. The donor chimpanzee as well as other chimpanzees involved in the epizootic developed specific antibodies against the coryza agent during the months following the outbreak. Susceptible chimpanzees following intranasal instillation of tissue culture materials infected with the coryza agent developed clinical coryza and subsequently made specific antibody. A presumptive etiologic association was established between the new agent and respiratory illness in a laboratory worker, but has not been implicated in the illnesses of small groups of patients with several common types of respiratory disease. However, a number of human beings, particularly adolescents and young adults, have antibodies in their sera directed against the coryza agent suggest...