Cases of mysterious shrew-transmitted disease double

Researchers have identified eight more people who died from the Borna virus, a known pathogen in several animals that was only recently shown to cause disease in humans. Scientists had been skeptical that the virus could infect people, but the new work suggests Borna has been killing humans for decades. “It’s a nice, clear study,” says Thomas Briese, a molecular virologist at Columbia University who was not involved with the work. The research, he says, adds important data on a human disease that scientists are just beginning to explore.