Paramyxovirus from the group APMV3, APMV4, APMV5, APMV6, APMV7, APMV8, APMV9, Mapueravirus and Fer-de-Lance virus are described, which can be used for the production of a medicament for the treatment of tumors. The virus has a selectivity to kill human tumor cells but not human normal differentiated and human normal proliferating cells at the same dose. By genetic engineering the virus can be modified in such a way that one or more genes are added or are replaced by the homologous genes of a related paramyxovirus. By that method the anti-tumor activity of the resulting chimeric virus is enhanced compared to the parental virus.
