September 12, 2024 | 00.06
READING TIME: 2 minutes
New Tick-Spread Virus Discovered in China with Potential to Attack the Brain and cause neurological problems. It is the Wetland virus (Welv) that was detected in a 61-year-old man who said he was bitten by a tick in a large wetland in Mongolia.
The symptoms
The man suffered from fever, headache and bouts of vomiting.. The case, which dates back to June 2019, was analyzed in a study in the ‘New England Journal of Medicine’ by the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology. Wetland virus is part of the group of viruses transmitted specifically by ticks (orthonairovirus), the researchers collected and analyzed nearly 14,600 ticks and found Weland virus in 5 species.
The focus was on ‘Haemaphysalis concinna’, which lives mainly in China, Russia and Central Europe, and has tested positive for the new virus in most cases. The researchers therefore analyzed blood samples
Acute Welv infection was identified in 17 patients from Inner Mongolia, and Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces of China. “These patients presented with nonspecific symptoms including fever, dizziness, headache, malaise, myalgia, arthritis and back pain and less frequently skin spots and localized lymph node enlargement.”
How to treat it
“One patient presented with neurological symptoms,” the study states. “Serological evaluation of convalescent samples obtained from 8 patients showed Welv-specific antibodies that were 4-fold higher than those in acute samples.” All patients recovered – after receiving antivirals, antibiotics, or immunoglobulins – with no long-term effects.
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