A new and potentially lethal virus has reportedly been detected in China, infecting at least 30 people in the country's eastern Henan and Shandong provinces.
The henipavirus "Langya," or "LayV," a novel virus that apparently gets passed on by shrews — small mammals from the same family as hedgehogs and moles — has been affiliated with a "family of viruses" that kill up to 75% of humans in severe cases, according to The Daily Mail.
However, none of the cases reported in China have resulted in death, and most are mild, with patients experiencing only "flu-like symptoms" to date, citing The Mail report; and according to virus experts in China, the human-to-human transmission cases of LayV have been "sporadic."
The most common symptoms of LayV, according to researchers: Fever, fatigue, cough, loss of appetite, muscle aches, and feeling queasy.
Also, approximately 35% of LayV patients encountered some form of liver problems, while 8% experienced a reduction in kidney function.
According to reports, the LayV henipavirus derives from the "Nipah" virus, a deadly pathogen that's typically found in bats; and similar to the coronavirus, Nipah can spread through respiratory droplets.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) classifies Nipah as a "zoonotic virus, meaning that it can spread between animals and people. Fruit bats, also called flying foxes, are the animal reservoir for [Nipah] in nature."
At this point, the Nipah vaccine has yet to be approved for human access. However, an Oxford University study is one of the eight vaccine testing areas with animals.
According to Langya researchers: "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 nine patients with 15 close-contact family members revealed no close-contact LayV transmission."
The researchers added, "but our sample size was too small to determine the status of human-to-human transmission for LayV."
The World Health Organization lists LayV as one of the possible viruses to cause the next pandemic.
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