Researchers are tracking an emerging animal derived virus known as Langya henipavirus which has been identified in 35 people in China but has not resulted in any deaths in those infected.
The main symptoms patients have shown include fever, fatigue, cough, lack of appetite, nausea, and vomiting. Experts believe those who are infected with the Langya virus (also known as LayV) most likely contracted it directly from an animal. According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine, LayV is predominantly found in shrews.
The infected LayV patients reportedly had a “recent history of animal exposure in eastern China,” according to the study summary.
Medical experts detected the new virus through throat swab samples, which were put under “metagenomic analysis and subsequent virus isolation.”
The genome of LayV is reportedly composed of 18,402 nucleotides, and it has an identical genome organisation to other henipaviruses known as a family of single-stranded RNA virus.
Henipaviruses can infect humans and cause fatal diseases, according to the NEJM study. These viruses are typically found in bats rodents and shrews. So far, there hasn’t been human-to-human transmission of LayV and the patients weren’t in close contact.
“The infection in the human population may be sporadic. Contact tracing of 9 patients with 15 close-contact family members revealed no close-contact LayV transmission, but our sample size was too small to determine the status of human-to-human transmission for LayV,” researchers wrote.
The study noted that further assessments need to be conducted to see if LayV could have cross-reaction with the Mojiang virus, which is another henipavirus that can cause lethal pneumonia.
Source: BBC News, CBS News, Fox News, The Guardian, image from BBC News: Getty Images