 This type of cancer was endemic in equatorial Africa and was the commonest malignancy of children in the early 1960s.In an attempt to find a cause for the cancer, Burkitt sent cells from the tumour to Anthony Epstein (b.1921) a British virologist, who along with Yvonne Barr and Bert Achong (1928–1996), and after many failures, discovered viruses that resembled herpes virus in the fluid that surrounded the cells.