BEIJING | According to scientists, who rule out the risk of human-to-human transmission at this stage, several dozen people in China have contracted a new virus of animal origin called langya.
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Langya henipavirus (LayV) virus causes symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, nausea and headache in humans.
Scientists speculate that the shrew, a small mammal with a pointed snout, may be the animal that enabled transmission to humans.
The infections were observed in the Chinese provinces of Shandong (east) and Henan (central).
According to a report published in early August by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), a leading medical journal in the United States, 35 people have become infected in China.
The patients, mostly farmers, had neither “close contact” nor “common exposure” to a pathogen, underlines the study, which assumes a “sporadic” infection in humans.
Some have developed blood cell abnormalities. Others suffered from impaired liver and kidney function, the report said.
The Langya was first recorded in 2018.
But this time, thanks to an acute fever detection system and a history of animal contact, the virus was officially identified.
At this point in time, the scientists consider it premature to comment on a possible human-to-human transmission of LayV in view of the small number of cases.
More research is needed to better understand diseases associated with the virus, according to researchers from China, Singapore and Australia who helped draft the report.
No serious or fatal cases of langya have been identified so far, virologist Linfa Wang of Singapore’s Duke-NUS School of Medicine, one of the report’s authors, told the Global Times.