WHAT IS THE NEW LANGYA VIRUS THAT HAS INFECTED DOZENS IN CHINA?

A new virus has infected dozens of people in China, with researchers suggesting shrews might be a “natural reservoir” for the virus.

 

Research published in The New England Journal of Medicine last week said that the Langya henipavirus was found in 35 people in the Chinese provinces of Henan and Shandong.

 

Scientists said that 26 of those people had no other pathogen detected in their body besides Langya and had a range of symptoms, including nausea, fever, vomiting and cough.

 

“Among 25 species of wild small animals surveyed, [Langya] RNA was predominantly detected in shrews (71 of 262 [27%]), a finding that suggests that the shrew may be a natural reservoir of [Langya],” researchers said.

 

Researchers think there may be only “sporadic” infection among humans.

 

“There was no close contact or common exposure history among the patients, which suggests that the infection in the human population may be sporadic. Contact tracing of 9 patients with 15 close-contact family members revealed no close-contact [Langya] transmission, but our sample size was too small to determine the status of human-to-human transmission for [Langya],” they said.