By Ifeyinwa Ogwo :
A new virus called “Langya henipavirus” (LayV) has been discovered by a group of researchers in the body of 35 patients in Shandong and Henan Provinces, Eastern China.
The virus is a type of henipavirus, a category of zoonotic viruses that can jump from animals to humans, and many of the infected patients have symptoms like fever, fatigue, and cough, which the researchers noted that the patient’s contracted the virus from animals mainly shrew- one animal that resembles a rat.
The researchers who were from China, Singapore, and Australia made this discovery in a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine this month.
One of the researchers, Wang Linfa from Duke-NUS medical school in Singapore told China State-run Global Times that the cases of LayV they have seen so far are not deadly and there is no need to panic.
“It is necessary for us to be alert because many viruses that exist have unpredictable results when they infect humans.
” 27% of shrews tested positive for the virus which shows that those mole-like mammals are natural reservoirs for the virus. About 5%of dogs and 2% of goats also tested positive for the virus,” Wang said.
However, Taiwan Center for Disease Control said that they will pay close attention to the development of LayV, while the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention noted that three out of every four new or emerging infectious diseases for people come from animals.
Some Zoonotic viruses have the potential to be fatal to humans, such includes the Nipah virus with periodic outbreaks among animals and humans from Asia, and the Hendra virus detected on horses in Australia.
