Talk:Human foamy virus

Restored last good version

User:Schlechterwolf can you explain this edit [1] ? I had to restore to before that. Widefox; talk 15:56, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Firstly I am sorry but I have no idea what your various editing text above actually means. I am a primatologist not a computer or wiki expert. Secondly as to my edit it is quite straightforward. The previous version of this page maintained 3 errors of fact(as you have now restored it to do again):

1. It claims incorrectly that chimpanzees occur in the wild in Kenya. It uses the expression "natural habitat" to do so. Correct details of the range states of the common chimpanzee can be found on the wiki page of the Chimpanzee which is fully annotated with authoritative references.

2. It claims that there are four species of chimpanzee. There is only one species of chimpanzee which in turn had at the time that the 2001 document the previous version was made from a decade ago four recognised sub-species. The chimpanzee still has those four sub-species and later scholarship has suggested that there may be a fifth subspecies; The same Wiki article contains the details of our current knowledge of chimpanzee sub-species.

3. It claims that one of these sub-species (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) has a range in Kenya AND is a species level organism. It neither has a range in Kenya nor is it species level status. The same chimpanzee Wiki page that I list above page will give authoratative details of the status of schweinfurthii (and the other sub-species) which also has it's own page on Wiki at Eastern chimpanzee

I trust that having noted these errors of fact that you will understand that the guesswork involved in the original version with it's weasel words "most likely" and "probably acquired" in the sentence "This species of chimpanzee has a natural habitat in Kenya and thus, the origin of the variant was most likely this species, and the virus was probably acquired as a zoonotic infection" is problematic.

Indeed given that no chimpanzee has a natural habitat in Kenya it cannot be claimed on that basis that the eastern chimpanzee sub-species (or any other sub-species) was the origin of the variant of virus nor that it was probably acquired as a zoonotic infection from a wild chimpanzee. It could of course have been acquired from a captive animal or from a different species of primate altogether (Including no doubt other humans).

My edit referred also to the sister species within the genus Pan - the bonobo - to exclude any mis-understanding that that animal is a sub-species of the common chimpanzee and thus the suspect vector for a chimpanzee-human transmission. Sadly the general public do not understand the species link between the different Pan species as can be seen from the entry for the bonobo's Wiki article.

The original mis-statements as to the status of chimpanzees range states and species type is a document "Historical Perspective of Foamy Virus Epidemiology and Infection (Meiering et al. Clinical Microbiology Reviews, January 2001)" dated 2001. I suspect that the authors of the paper, whilst eminent physicians were not particularly well informed as to the then current status of primatological knowledge. I see no reason why something which was just plain wrong almost 20 years ago should be regarded as "good" as you put it because of age.

Perhaps you can tell me if I am wrong in this. Can you explain to me what you did not understand or agree with in my previous edit?

Schlechterwolf (talk) 19:01, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

References