Deadly Virus Threatens Second Worker At Lab Fellow Researcher Died From Rare Herpes B Infection Last Month

Three weeks after a researcher died of a herpes B virus contracted when a monkey splashed fluid in her eye, a co-worker may have been exposed in the same way, even though she was wearing goggles.

The unidentified researcher at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center was released Wednesday from Emory University Hospital after four days of tests.

“Her physicians have found no evidence of herpes B infection,” said Sylvia Wroble, an Emory spokeswoman. “Out of that same precaution and concern, however, we will continue to monitor her over the next months.”

Macaque monkeys, the type used for research at Yerkes, are common carriers of herpes B virus. Though it is usually harmless to monkeys, the virus is fatal to 70 percent of humans who contract it.

Although monkey-to-human herpes B infections are extremely rare, it was second time this month that a lab worker at Yerkes, a research arm of Emory, has been hospitalized after being hit in the eye by body fluids.

Elizabeth Griffin, 22, died of herpes B complications on Dec. 10, six weeks after a rhesus monkey, a type of macaque, infected her as she was moving its cage. It was unclear what the fluid was.

Yerkes employees are supposed to wear goggles when there is a chance that bodily fluids containing the virus - saliva and sometimes urine - might be swept up into the air, such as when a cage is being cleaned, but not when they move the animals.

Unlike Griffin, the second worker was wearing eye protection, Wroble said. She would not discuss other specifics of the incident.

But Robin Slater, a friend of the researcher’s, said fluid seeped in from the sides of her goggles. He said she had a red eye and had been given antibiotics, but otherwise seemed fine.

Griffin appeared well initially, except for an inflamed eye that appeared almost two weeks after she was splashed. After 10 days of treatment in the hospital - during which doctors confirmed she was infected with the virus - she was well enough to go home. She was readmitted a short time later.

Herpes B has an incubation period of up to three weeks.

Only 40 cases of monkey-to-human herpes B infections have been recorded since 1933. Ms. Griffin’s case was the first not caused by a bite or scratch, Yerkes said.

Yerkes, which has about 2,800 primates, performs tests on 15 primate species in researching treatments for AIDS, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s disease and cancer.