Langya virus China

At least 35 patients across 2 Chinese provinces have been infected with the phylogenetically distinct Langya henipavirus (LayV), according to a report in ...

LayV is most closely phylogenetically related to Mojiang henipavirus, a virus with a genome length of 18404 nt originally discovered in southern China. The Langya virus is comprised of 18402 nucleotides with genomic organization identical to other henipaviruses. Though the sample size is small, they suspect Langya virus was hosted by shrews before infecting humans.

Thirty five people are known to have been infected by Langya henipavirus in the Shandong and Henan provinces of China between December 2018 and May 2021.

Nevertheless, he says the most likely source of any future pandemic will be a virus that jumps from animals to humans. The researchers found no evidence of close contact between the people infected with the virus. The researchers mention that some of the infected people had pneumonia, but don’t specify how many or give details on its severity. The researchers tested 25 species of small wild animals for the virus. The Nipah virus, first identified in 1999 in Malaysia, is also part of this genus. The genus includes the Hendra virus, which was first identified in Australia in 1994 and is known to infect humans and horses.

Langya virus, or Langya henipavirus, has been identified in China—the potentially deadly virus spreads from animals to humans.

However, as the situation rapidly evolves and the scientific community’s understanding of the virus develops, some of the information may have changed since it was last updated. “It was discovered over four years ago and we don’t have a ton of cases,” Dr. Russo says. (Shrews, in case you’re not familiar with them, are small, mouse-like animals.) It was also detected in 2% of goats and 5% of dogs that were tested, the paper says. Since Langya henipavirus is a new virus, there’s no specific treatment for it. According to the New England Journal of Medicine paper, the virus seems to be transmitted from animals to humans. “Contact tracing of nine patients with 15 close-contact family members revealed no close-contact LayV transmission,” the researchers wrote. Meaning, Langya henipavirus was the only thing that could have made them sick. Given that we’re still living through a pandemic thanks to COVID-19, and the ongoing outbreak of Monkeypox, it’s understandable to be wary of yet another new infectious disease. According to the paper, 35 people have been diagnosed with Langya henipavirus (LayV) and, of those, the only potential pathogen found in 26 of them was Langya henipavirus. And, if infectious disease experts think it’s time to worry. Most of the 35 cases were in farmers, while other people who developed the virus were factory workers. A new virus has been identified in China that’s raising eyebrows.

An international team of scientists is tracking a newly-identified, potentially dangerous virus that has jumped from animals to humans to infect at least 35 ...

In fact, three out of four new or emerging infectious diseases in humans have come from animals, according to the CDC (opens in new tab), and 500,000 or more viruses already have spillover potential, Live Science previously reported. This makes shrews a potential natural reservoir for the virus, which was also present in some domestic animals, including 5% of the dogs and 2% of the goats surveyed. Several patients also developed signs of kidney and liver damage, but there have been no reported deaths thus far.

Scientists hypothesize wild shrews may be the 'natural reservoir' for the new Langya henipavirus discovered in eastern China.

The Cedar, Ghanaian and Mojiang viruses have not definitively made the jump to humans. “I don’t think this should make the list.” Most of the infected patients were farmers.

Scientist detected 35 cases of Langya virus, a new henipavirus, over three years. No deaths or person to person transmission has been reported.

With the development of new techniques for identifying viruses, there’s certainly been a global increase in surveillance, and this has accelerated in the past five years," Hudson said. Cooper guessed that people might also get exposed through contact with the droppings of infected animals, but scientists haven't determined that to be true yet. In the case of Hendra virus, the virus is usually passed from bats to horses; it then infects humans through the animals' excretions or bodily fluids. "There are clearly repeated transmission events from what looks to be a common reservoir in shrews," Cooper said. People can catch Nipah virus from bats or pigs through direct contact with the animals, their bodily fluids or contaminated food. She was infected with a henipavirus, a class that includes some dangerous pathogens like Nipah virus, which has a fatality rate of 40% to 75%.