Langya Virus Infects 35 People in Eastern China - Report Says
by Seemab Chaudhary
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There is a new virus detected in eastern China as a dozen cases have been recorded. Researchers reveal that in late 2018, the first Langya henipavirus (LayV) was detected in the north-eastern.
The formal identification came last week by scientists. More research reveals a lot about the LayV, such as it can be transmitted from animals to humans. Meanwhile, scientists tested wild animals and “detected the virus in a quarter of 262 shrews”.
Moreover, the infected people had recent animal exposure in eastern china which led to the virus. Researchers detected the new virus through the throat swab samples.
The new virus, LayV, comprises 18,402 nucleotides and also has an identical genome organization to other henipaviruses in the Paramyxoviridae family.
Researchers believe due to the NEJM study that “Henipaviruses can infect humans and may develop more fatal diseases”.
According to recent reports, the virus is not transmitted from human to human yet infected people weren’t in close contact.
There is a widespread perception that zoonotic disease spillovers are on the rise. This may, or may not, be true. It's difficult to say since our ability to pick up pathogen spillovers has increased drastically. LayV, as is, would likely have gone unnoticed 20 years ago.
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— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) August 10, 2022
So far, the sample was so small to check the status of human-to-human transmission (LayV). It is still unclear if the virus can transmit to others or not.
Scientists also share that the LayV genome was a henipavirus which is a category of zoonotic RNA viruses that also include Hendra virus and Nipah virus that can infect horses and humans. This one originated in Australia. But the Nipah virus was from south-east Asia. These are associated with high fatality rates.
But reports say that scientists relate the LayV closely to the Mojiang virus, reported in southern China. Now, Taiwan Centers for Diseases Control (CDC) declared on Sunday that they will practice genome sequencing and surveillance measures for LayV, as reported by Taiwan’s Central News Agency.
