Langya Virus: Experts Suggest Further Study as New Infectious Disease Could Be Just 'Tip of The Iceberg'

Health experts underscored the need for further monitoring of the new virus that infected dozens of individuals in eastern China.

Although this virus may not be the source of the next pandemic, it does present how readily viruses can be transmitted undetected from animals to people, as reported by CNN.

Scientists who suspect the virus, known as Langya henipavirus, may have passed directly or indirectly to people from shrews, small mole-like rodents prevalent in a range of settings, say it sickened nearly three dozen farmers and other locals.

Between 2018 and 2021, experts detected the infection in 35 unrelated fever patients in hospitals in Shandong and Henan provinces.

This finding is consistent with long-standing scientific warnings that animal viruses routinely infect people globally without being noticed.

We Should Not Underestimate Langya

Virus expert Leo Poon, a professor at the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health, noted: "We are hugely underestimating the number of these zoonotic cases in the world, and this (Langya virus) is just the tip of the iceberg."

Due to the increased worry about illness outbreaks, the first scientific study on the virus was published as communication by a group of Chinese and foreign academics in the New England Journal of Medicine last week.

Since the discovery of the COVID-19 virus that caused the global pandemic in China over two years ago, hundreds of thousands of new cases are still being reported daily across the globe.

Health experts said the Langya virus had not been linked to a local outbreak of connected cases, and there is no evidence that it is transmitting from one person to another.

However, they stressed that more research on a broader proportion of patients is necessary to exclude human-to-human dissemination.

Chinese researchers initially detected the Langya virus during routine surveillance on individuals exhibiting fevers who had recently reported interaction with animals. After identifying the virus, the researchers searched for it in additional persons.

Although it was unclear how long the patients were sick, the symptoms reported, such as fever, exhaustion, coughing, loss of appetite, muscle aches, nausea, and headache, appeared to be generally moderate.

A lesser percentage of patients suffered potentially more serious problems like pneumonia and changes in the function of the liver and kidneys. However, there was no information on the severity of these anomalies, the need for hospitalization, or whether any cases were fatal, as per a Scientific American article.

The research examined samples from domestic goats, dogs, pigs, and cattle and 25 species of small wild animals in the villages of the affected individuals to identify the possible source of LayV.

No Deaths Were Reported

Only a few dogs and goats (5% or less of the examined animals) were discovered to have LayV antibodies. They discovered LayV genetic material (RNA) "predominantly" in shrews (27% of the examined animals) among the wild animals.

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai's Dr. Benhur Lee, a professor of microbiology, stated on Twitter that there is strong evidence that LayV [has] "sporadically spilled over into humans from shrews, producing pneumonia and flu-like symptoms."

Additionally, he added that it was important to continue surveillance even though "no deaths were reported" and there is "no evidence for onward human transmission," per Healthline.

Tags

China