Scientists are on the lookout for a new virus that appears to have been transmitted from animals to humans in China and causes symptoms similar to those of COVID-19 or the flu.
The researchers wrote in New England Journal of Medicine last Thursday that 35 patients in the Chinese provinces of Shandong and Henan were confirmed to have been infected with the Langya virus.
Dr. Donald Vinh, an infectious disease specialist at the McGill University Health Center in Montreal, says that while the general public should not panic, the new virus is something that the medical and scientific community should be concerned about, as many questions remain unanswered.
“From a medical and scientific perspective, there is a concern because we need to understand how this virus is distributed. And more importantly, what is the range of severity of illness that you can get from this virus? And that’s what that we don’t know,” he told CTVNews.ca by phone on Thursday.
“I think what we need to do is let the medical and scientific community focus on their concerns and get that information. Because until we have that information, there’s really no need to panic.”
Among the 35 patients, 26 were infected with only Langya virus and had no other pathogens present. Of these patients, all had a fever and 54 percent had fatigue.
Cough, anorexia, muscle aches, nausea, headaches, and vomiting were other common symptoms. All 26 patients also had blood test abnormalities, as well as liver and kidney damage.
“(That) is usually a harbinger of something a little more serious,” Vinh said.
Contract tracing of nine patients and 15 close-contact family members found no close-contact transmission of the virus, the researchers said, but noted that the sample size was “too small to determine the status of person-to-person transmission.” person”. .”
“There was no close contact or history of common exposure among the patients, suggesting that infection in the human population may be sporadic,” they wrote.
Langya virus belongs to a group of viruses known as henipaviruses, which the researchers say are “known to infect humans and cause deadly disease.” In 2018, there was an outbreak of the Nipah virus, another henipavirus, which caused 17 deaths.
“One of the things that the Nipah virus can do, aside from flu symptoms, is that it can actually infect the lungs or cause pneumonia. But more importantly, it can also infect the brain,” Vinh said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any drugs or vaccines against Nipah virus. We certainly don’t have anything against this new Langya virus and that question mark is cause for concern.”
Henipaviruses have been detected in bats and rodents, but this new virus may have come from shrews, as the researchers say they detected Langya virus RNA in local shrew populations.
“Animals and insects… they have a habitat, they have a niche. And they also have their own biome, in the sense that they have germs, viruses and bacteria and other things inherent in them,” Vinh explained.
Vinh says that as human settlements continue to expand into existing animal habitats, this may result in more human-animal contact and more opportunities for a virus to jump between species.
“Human encroachment on the environment has consequences for human health,” he added.