Once again, Chinese doctors are sounding the alarm about a brand new virus that has affected 35 people. I’“Langya” henipavirus – or LayV – has been detected in people in two provinces of Henan and Shandong, located in northeast China. This Sunday August 7, 2022, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Taiwan announced that they have placed the development of this virus under surveillance, even if the cases are so far limited to China.
The Langya virus is part of a group known to have previously caused outbreaks of highly lethal infections in humans. The cases were detected between 2018 and 2021, but were only reported on August 4, 2022 by the New England Journal of Medicine.
None of the cases have so far resulted in death and most are even minor. Patients infected with Langya henipavirus in most cases show flu-like symptoms.
What are the symptoms of the Langya virus?
After tracking all of the symptoms, the researchers found that the fever was the most common in people infected with the virus.
THE other main symptoms are :
- Fatigue, in 54% of patients;
- Loss of appetite (50%);
- Muscle pain (46%);
- Nausea and vomiting (38%).
Approximately 35% of infected patients suffered from liver problems and 8% saw a decline in their kidney function.
Langya: how is the virus transmitted?
The researchers analyzed the virus in animal populations, to see if it was spread by domestic or wild animals, or if human-to-human transmission was responsible for the rise in cases.
“There was no close contact or common exposure history among the patients, suggesting that infection in the human population may be sporadic. Contact tracing of nine patients with 15 close contact family members revealed no close contact LayV transmission.they said.
The source would therefore probably be animal. The researchers even think that the virus would have been transmitted to humans by shrewssmall mammals of the same family as hedgehogs and moles.
Should we be worried?
The emergence of this new henipavirus worries researchers, in particular because of the profile of two other henipaviruses, Hendra virus and the Nipah virus, both of which can be transmitted from animals to humans. Both also have high mortality rates. And like Covid-19, the Nipah virus spreads through respiratory droplets. It has even been listed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as theone of the viruses most likely to cause the next pandemic.
Nevertheless, none of Langya’s cases have resulted in the death of an infected person and since the discovery of the first cases in 2018, researchers believe that its spread is only “sporadic“.
Source :
- A zoonotic henipavirus in febrile patients in China, The New England of Journal MedicineAugust 4, 2022
