A New 'Langya' Virus Has Spread To 35 Humans In China & Here's What We Know About It
The virus spread from animals to humans.
Scientists in China and Taiwan are reporting several cases of a new animal-borne virus that has since spread to humans, although they’re not sounding the alarm just yet.
The virus, called Langya henipavirus or LayV, has infected 35 people to date in eastern China, according to a letter published by researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine.
All but nine of the patients were infected with LayV alone, according to the letter. The most common symptoms of the disease included fever, fatigue and coughing, although a minority of patients also reported anorexia, myalgia, nausea, headache and vomiting.
No deaths or serious cases have been reported among those 35 patients.
Researchers also found the virus in several species of wild animals, including shrews. They say shrews were the the predominant carriers and "may be a natural reservoir" of the new virus.
So what does it all mean?
The researchers say that based on what they've found, the disease seems to have passed from animals to humans on a "sporadic" basis, and they've found no evidence of the virus transmitting from human-to-human. That last bit is what makes viruses spread more quickly, as with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
They say they're doing contact tracing to get more info, "but our sample size was too small to determine the status of human-to-human transmission for LayV."
Researcher Wang Linfa, from the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, said public health officials should be on alert based on the findings. He told China's state-run Global Times that there's no need to panic, although it's important to monitor new viruses such as this one.
"Coronavirus will not be the last infectious disease to cause a pandemic worldwide, as new infectious diseases will have an increasingly greater impact on human daily life," he said.
Henipaviruses are a category of viruses that Nipah virus, according to the U.S. CDC. Nipah virus was responsible for a deadly outbreak in India last year.
There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments for henipavirus infections, according to the CDC. The best way to avoid infection is to stay away from animals and their feces that might be infected.
