Earlier this month, news broke that a virus never seen beforethe Langya henipavirus (LayV), had infected dozens of people in China and understandably this triggered an unpleasant déjà vu for many, and of course the question that immediately comes to us: how much is there to worry about?
According to experts: not much, at least not for now, however the epidemic should serve as another example of the fact that zoonotic diseases that pass from animals to humans are likely to be even more common in the years to come.
“There is no need to particularly worry about this virus at the moment, although continuous surveillance is important”
commented professor Edward Holmes of Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute University of Sydney, but what do we know so far about this new virus?
Until today, at least 35 people were infected by LayV in the Chinese provinces of Shandong And Henan from 2019according to a relationship of the New England Journal Of Medicine published Aug.4, and most of the cases involved farmers, although a small number were factory workers, with researchers also discovering virus evidence in wild shrewssuggesting this to be its natural reservoir.
The second thing that comes naturally to ask is how serious this virus is, and fortunately, even in this case, it doesn’t seem to be too serious, it seems.
There fever was the most commonly reported symptomwhich has been experienced by every infected person, other mild symptoms such as tiredness, cough, He retched, nausea And headache. A small but significant number experienced impaired liver and kidney function, as well as low levels of platelets or white blood cells.
However, it is unclear how serious these complications were and whether people required hospitalization, but fortunately it appears that so far there have been no deaths.
How contagious is LayV?
The current state, there is no evidence of person-to-person transmission. The researchers tracked the contacts of nine patients with 15 close contacts and found no evidence of the virus being transmitted to other people, however they said their sample was too small to completely rule out the possibility of human-to-human transmission.
Furthermore, 35 infections in three years is not a huge number of peoplealthough we should take these statistics with a pinch of salt as the currently reported cases are likely to be the tip of the iceberg.
“We are still at the beginning, but there are some reassuring signs, namely that there have been no deaths or many serious illnesses from it, that there don’t appear to have been many cases, and that person-to-person transmission has not been found,” unlike monkeypox and COVID-19 “
he added Sanjaya Senanayake, infectious disease specialist and associate professor of medicine at theAustralian National University.
The most significant thing about this virus is that we’ve seen something similar before, in fact LayV is a henipavirusthe same genus that contains the Hendra virus – a bat-borne virus that infects horses and humans, first identified in Australia – and the Nipah virus – another zoonotic virus found in Asia.
The Hendra and Nipah viruses appear to be more dangerous than LayV, at least in terms of mortality rate, but it’s too early to know for sure.
The new virus is also closely related to another henipavirus called Mòjiāng viruswhich may have infected six miners, killing three, in the Chinese autonomous county of Mòjiāng Hani in June 2012.
So what does all this mean? What situations like that of Covid-19 will be more and more frequent? It is widely noted that humanity’s “broken relationship” with nature is creating a perfect storm for future pandemics to erupt. Through urbanization, deforestation and large-scale conversion of land for agriculture, we are invading the natural environment more than ever, increasing the risk of a zoonotic disease affecting humans.
It seems that LayV is just another reminder that humanity is playing with fire.
“This group of viruses poses a constant and real threat to humans and livestock, and viruses such as LayV need to be monitored closely”
noted Dr Nick Fountain-Jones, a research associate at the University of Tasmania, who later added:
“Unfortunately, just because we are still experiencing the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic doesn’t mean another isn’t around the corner.”
If you are attracted to science or technology, keep following us, so you don’t miss the latest news and news from all over the world!
#LayV #virus #scares #SARSCov2