Rome, August 9, 2022 – Identified a new virus in China that has already caught on 35 people . The outbreak occurred in the provinces of Henan and Shandong on the coast, an area between the capital Beijing to the north and Shanghai to the south, while the pathogen is called Langya virus (LayV), of the genus Henipavirus, and has been identified in ne throat swabs thanks to the metagenomic analysis and then the isolation of the pathogen.
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This infection, described in a study by scientists from China and Singapore and published in the New England Journal of Medicine – a zoonoses – causes symptoms like Fever, tiredness, cough and can also endanger them liver and kidney function . There is currently no vaccine or treatment for henipavirus; The only therapy is that complication management .
The genre henipavirus is one of the emerging zoonoses in the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, other viruses of this “family” have been observed, such as hendra (HeV) e.g nipa (NiV) that can infect humans and in which they occur bats or in shrews their natural host. According to the World Health Organization, henipaviruses can cause serious illness in animals and humans and are classified as Biosafety Level 4, ie with mortality rates between 40 and 75%. Much higher than Covid.
The virus is still being studied, but at the moment it doesn’t seem capable of being easily transmitted from person to person. “There was no close contact or shared history of exposure among patients, suggesting that infection may be sporadic in the human population,” the researchers write. The follow-up of patient contacts also did not document any infection