Less than 3 years after the emergence of the Coronavirus from China, Chinese scientists revealed a new virus called Langya that appeared in the east of the country, so what are its most prominent symptoms?
The provinces of Shandong and Henan in eastern China have revealed a new zoonotic virus that has infected about 35 people so far, according to a study published by scientists from China, Singapore, and Australia in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
Researchers began tracking the virus, which is believed to have spread from animals to humans, after recording dozens of infections, and the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that it will implement genome sequencing and surveillance procedures for the virus, to research methods of transmission and investigate similar diseases in native species in Taiwan.
"LANGYA HNIPA" virus
1- What is the Langya virus?
A new type of animal-derived Henipavirus, also called Langya henipavirus (LayV), was found in throat samples of febrile patients in eastern China with a history of recent contact with animals.
According to the British newspaper, “The Guardian”, the LANGYA HNIPA virus (LayV) was first detected in the northeastern provinces of Shandong and Henan in late 2018, but scientists only officially recognized it last week.
So far the virus has been found in goats and dogs, but it is still not clear how it is transmitted between humans, and researchers tested wild animals, and found "LayV" viral RNA in more than 262 shrews, which are small, mole-like mammals, indicating that they may be The natural host of the virus.
The new virus was also detected in 2% of domestic goats and 5% of dogs, the report said, and LANGYA HNIPA is closely related to the Mojiang virus, a new virus found in 2012 in miners working at a mine in Mojiang Hani Province in southern China.
Hnipavirus causes severe disease in animals and humans, and case fatality rates range from 40-75%, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), and this is much higher than the mortality rate for people infected with the Corona virus. The only treatment is supportive care to manage complications.
2- Symptoms of the Langya virus
According to the study published in NEJM titled "Animal Virus in Fever Patients in China," those infected had the following symptoms:
- Fever
- fatigue
- Cough
- Anorexia
- muscle pain
- Nausea and vomiting
- irritation
- a headache
Reports indicate that infection may reduce the number of white blood cells in infected people, as well as reduce liver and kidney function.
3- Are HNIPA Viruses Deadly?
“The mortality rate for human infection ranges between 50 and 100%, making it one of the deadliest viruses known to infect humans,” says a study published in July 2022 in Current Opinion in Virology.
And timesofindia quoted the study about the susceptibility of the virus to infection with the virus, and explained: “Its use of highly conserved cell surface molecules (ephrin) as entry receptors and highly effective replication and fusion strategies are believed to have important properties responsible for its high pathogenicity.”
However, no serious cases have appeared so far. “LANGYA HNIPA cases have not yet been fatal or very serious, so there is no need to panic,” said Wang Linfa, a professor in the Emerging Infectious Diseases Program at Duke-NUS College of Medicine and one of the researchers on the study.
"This virus remains a cause for alarm as many viruses found in nature have unexpected results when they infect humans," Linfa added.
No large Spatio-temporal assemblies of LANGYA HNIPA have been found so far, which means that human-to-human transmission of the virus has not been proven, although previous reports indicate that the virus can be transmitted from person to person.
"The coronavirus will not be the last infectious disease to cause a global pandemic, as new infectious diseases will have an increasingly greater impact on human daily life," said Wang Xinyu, deputy chief physician of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Huashan Hospital affiliated with Fudan University.
"It is important to stress that the scope of this type of disease should not be limited to human diseases, but should be viewed in a broader context," the Global Times quoted Wang as saying.