Virus found in China causes great concern among scientists

The pandemic taught people how to blow on water, so every new virus discovered in the world is now being examined under a microscope, especially if it is found in China. The scientific journal Nature has published a whole review dedicated to another suspicious newcomer – the Langya virus, identified in China. It is a close relative of the alarming Nipah virus, however, by all accounts, has not yet learned to easily spread from person to person. However, there are no guarantees that he will not learn, of course.

So, according to Nature, a new virus has been discovered in eastern China that can infect humans. This was shown by retrospective studies in two provinces among patients with similar symptoms detected over the past four years.

The virus, named Langya henipavirus (LayV), can cause respiratory manifestations such as fever, cough and fatigue, and is closely related to two other henipaviruses, Hendra virus and Nipah virus. They also cause respiratory infections and can be fatal. Researchers believe that LayV is carried by shrews, which may have infected humans directly or through an intermediate animal.

Genipaviruses belong to a family of viruses that includes measles, mumps, and many respiratory viruses. Several other henipaviruses have been found in bats, rats and shrews from Australia to South Korea and China, but only Hendra, Nipah and now LayV are known to infect humans.

The virus was first described in the New England Journal of Medicine on August 4, 2022. The newcomer was named after the city of Langya in the Chinese province of Shandong, where the first identified patient with him comes from: a 53-year-old woman. Over the course of the study, the scientists found 35 people infected with LayV, mostly farmers, with symptoms ranging from severe pneumonia to coughing. Most of the patients answered in the questionnaire that they had been in contact with animals within a month of the onset of symptoms.

While there is no cause for concern: the virus does not seem to spread easily between people. The infected were not related: there were no clusters of cases in the same family, within a short period of time, or in close geographic proximity.

However, researchers are confident that the virus must be brought under control. According to evolutionary virologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, Edward Holmes, constant surveillance is critical: Regular testing of people and animals for new viruses is important to understand the risk of zoonotic diseases – those that can be transmitted from other animals to humans.

Emily Gurley, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, believes that today scientists should be more active in identifying new viruses that can ignite the flames of a pandemic: “If we actively look for these sparks, then we will have much more opportunities to stop or detect something on early stage”.

To determine the possible animal origin of the virus, the researchers tested goats, dogs, pigs and cattle living in villages of infected patients for antibodies against LayV, and took tissue and urine samples from 25 species of wild small animals. They found antibodies to LayV in several goats and dogs, and also detected viral RNA in 27% of 262 shrew samples collected. This suggested that the shrews are a reservoir for the virus, passing the virus among themselves and somehow accidentally infecting people here and there.

However, it is still not clear exactly how people became infected – directly from shrews or from an intermediate animal. Therefore, there is still much research to be done.

Scientists believe that there is an urgent need for a global surveillance system to detect the spread of the virus and quickly disseminate the results in order to avoid new pandemics like the one caused by COVID-19. “The world must wake up,” they say.

As the professor, head of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology of the Russian National Research Medical University named after V.I. N.I. Pirogova, Honored Doctor of the Russian Federation Vladimir Nikiforov, the appearance of information about the Langya virus has already given rise to a lot of statements by supposedly domestic specialists in especially dangerous infections: “Some already prohibit touching wild animals abroad. It should immediately be noted that contact with wild animals should not be done either abroad or in Russia, if only because they can be sources of banal rabies.

But keep in mind that the virus is not entirely new: it has been known for four years. And during this time, not so many patients were identified, of which, moreover, no one died. The disease proceeds in a mild and moderate form, demonstrating the clinic of the usual acute respiratory viral infection, which is accompanied by nausea and vomiting. Test systems have been developed to detect this virus, but so far it does not spread and does not bring much harm. Therefore, we can say that this is another zoonosis, which is locally detected in endemic areas of China. Yes, it’s from the same family as Nipah, which has a high fatality rate (although it’s possible that many wear it asymptomatically, which no one knows about). But now the emergence of any little-studied viruses is perceived acutely, and this is a natural process. At least in this situation, there is no reason to talk about a new pandemic. Yes, the information needs to be taken into account and the virus under control – and all this is being done.