By Harsha Josephine Antony | On Fri 12 Aug 2022 | 9.30 pm IST |
Photo credit: BBC News
According to a team of scientists, the virus, dubbed Langya henipavirus, infected nearly three dozen farmers and other residents and may have spread directly or indirectly to people from shrews. This finding is consistent with longstanding scientific warnings that animal viruses regularly spill undetected into people worldwide.
More research is needed on a mystery virus discovered in dozens of individuals in eastern China that may not create the next pandemic but demonstrates how quickly viruses may spread from animals to humans, according to experts. According to a team of scientists, the Langya henipavirus virus affected over three dozen farmers and other inhabitants and may have transferred directly or indirectly to people via shrews – tiny mole-like creatures prevalent in various settings. The virus was found in 35 unconnected fever patients treated in hospitals in Shandong and Henan provinces between 2018 and 2021, but no deaths were reported.
“We are vastly underestimating the number of these zoonotic instances in the globe, and this (Langya virus) is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Leo Poon, an emerging virus expert at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health. The latter was not associated with the new study. Due to increased worry about disease outbreaks, the first scientific investigation on the virus, published as correspondence from a team of Chinese and foreign researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine last week, garnered global attention. Thousands of new Covid-19 cases are being reported globally every day, nearly three years after the novel coronavirus responsible for the epidemic was discovered in China. The researchers, however, claim that there is no indication that the Langya virus is transmitting between individuals or that it has generated a local outbreak of linked cases. They noted that more research on a broader fraction of patients is required to exclude human-to-human transmission.
Linfa Wang, a veteran emerging infectious disease scientist who was part of the research team, told CNN that while the new virus was unlikely to evolve into “another ‘disease X’ event,” such as a previously unknown pathogen causing an epidemic or pandemic, “it does demonstrate that such zoonotic spillover events occur more frequently than we think or know.” “It is vitally important to perform active surveillance in a transparent and internationally coordinated manner,” said Wang, a Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School professor, to lessen the danger of a new virus becoming a health problem.
Langya henipavirus, often known as Langya virus, is a kind of henipavirus that was discovered in the Chinese provinces of Shandong and Henan in 2008. It has been confirmed in 35 patients from 2018 to August 2022. Except for nine instances in China, all 35 individuals were infected with LayV alone, with symptoms including fever, tiredness, and cough. When they discovered that a new virus was infecting individuals, the researchers, comprised of Beijing-based experts and Qingdao disease control experts, worked to figure out what was causing the infections. They looked for evidence of the virus in farmed animals where patients lived and discovered a limited number of goats and dogs that had previously been infected. Although it was not known how long the patients were ill, the symptoms mentioned looked to be generally minor – fever, exhaustion, cough, lack of appetite, muscular pains, nausea, and headache. A lower number of patients suffered potentially more significant problems, such as pneumonia and impaired liver and renal function. However, no information was provided on the severity of these anomalies, the necessity for hospitalisation, or if any cases were fatal.
The breakthrough came when they evaluated samples collected from small wild animals trapped in traps and discovered 71 illnesses in two shrew species, leading the scientists to believe that these little, rodent-like rodents are where the virus circulates typically. What is unknown is how the virus got into humans, according to Wang. Further research into Langya henipavirus would be performed in the two regions where the virus was discovered and throughout China and abroad. The National Health Commission of China did not respond instantly to a request for information on whether the virus was being monitored for new cases.
