Chinese scientists have discovered a brand new virus. This is according to a new study in the renowned medical journal New England Journal of Medicine.
35 people are said to be infected with the new virus, which belongs to the Paramyxoviridae family. The virus family is known to cause fatal disease.
Other known viruses from the family are the hendra virus and the nipah virus.
– Serious illness
Nipah virus is according to Major medical encyclopedias (SML) a so-called zoonosis, which means that the virus can be transmitted from animals to humans.
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Infection from the nipah virus causes mild disease in pigs, but severe disease in humans. The virus got its name from the Nypa date palm, which is sought out by fruit-eating bats.
Fruit bats are known as natural reservoirs (host animals) for the virus.
– The virus was identified for the first time in Malaysia in 1999 and is described by the WHO as a disease on the rise, writes the encyclopedia.
Infection with the related hendra virus causes disease with high mortality both in horses and in humans, according to SML.
35 febrile patients
The new virus, which has been named Langya henipavirus (LayV), was discovered in connection with examinations of febrile patients in the eastern part of China.
The patients must have had in common that they had all had recent contact with animals, according to the study.
The doctors managed to isolate a completely new and previously unknown virus when they tested a throat sample from one of the patients.
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Later, the doctors discovered that a total of 35 patients from the provinces of Shandong and Henan were infected with this new virus.
HENAN PROVINCE: The virus has been detected in the Chinese provinces of Henan and Shandong. The photo is from the city of Zhengzhou in Henan. Photo: NTB/Shutterstock editorial
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26 of the patients only tested positive for langyavirus, and no other disease-causing bacteria or viruses.
All of the 26 were affected by fever. The doctors also reported symptoms such as fatigue in those affected.
Suspect shrew
Many also had symptoms such as cough, loss of appetite and muscle pain.
Some also reported nausea, headache and vomiting, as well as an abnormally low concentration of blood platelets, abnormally low values of white blood cells and impaired function of both the liver and kidneys.
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The researchers examined various domestic animals in the area to find out which animals could be carriers of the virus. The virus was found in a few goats and dogs, but the researchers found the most infected when they examined shrews.
– 27 percent of the shrews that we tested were positive, which suggests that the shrew can be a natural host organism for the virus, they write.
The fact that the virus has been found in so many sick people does not necessarily mean that a causal link has been established between the virus and the disease.
– Higher viral loads
In order for the researchers to establish a connection, four criteria – the so-called Koch’s postulate – must be met, according to the website Medicinenett:
The microorganism must be present in all sick individuals. It must be able to be isolated and grow in a culture. It must cause a specific disease state in an individual, and it must be able to be isolated from the infected individual.
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In the new Chinese study, not all of these four criteria are met, but the researchers point to several findings that suggest that the langya virus is the cause:
– The virus was the only potential pathogen we discovered in 26 of the 35 patients who had an acute infection.
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The researchers also point out that the amount of virus seemed to increase in patients who were in an acute phase of the disease.
– The amount of virus in the blood could be linked to the acute infection. Patients who had pneumonia had higher viral loads than those who did not have pneumonia, they write.
Contagion between people?
As for the related nipah virus, cases of human-to-human transmission have been reported, according to the researchers.
However, they write that it is too early to determine whether the langya virus can be transmitted between people.
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– There was no close contact or shared exposure history among the patients, which suggests that infections in the human population may be sporadic.
The researchers conclude that the virus probably comes from animals, and that it can be linked to febrile illness in humans.
– More research should be done on this so that we can gain a better understanding of human disease associated with the virus.
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