Experimental infection of gibbons with rhinovirus.

PROGRESS toward the chemotherapy or prophylaxis of human, rhinovirus infections would benefit from studies in suitable experimental animals, but our attempts to produce rhinovirus infection in several small laboratory animals including leopard frogs, guinea-pigs, gerbils, marmosets, and newborn, as well as adult, mice, ferrets and hamsters, have been unsuccessful. Dick has demonstrated that chimpanzees are susceptible to rhinoviruses1 and he has also obtained equivocal evidence of infection in the gibbon and patas monkey (personal communication). We have re-examined the susceptibility of these animals to rhinoviruses and have found that only the gibbon could be infected.