Dozens of infections for a new dangerous Chinese virus, but, fortunately….
There are areas of the world that, due to their promiscuity and high population density, seem destined to be the incubator of new viruses. Nearly three dozen people in China have fallen ill from a recently identified virus, belonging to the same family as the deadly Nipah and Hendra viruses, although there is no evidence that the pathogen can be passed from person to person.
The virus, called Langya henipavirus or LayV , was detected thanks to an early detection system of feverish people with a recent history of animal exposure in eastern China. Patients – mainly farmers – also reported fatigue, cough, loss of appetite and pain, and many developed blood cell abnormalities and signs of liver and kidney damage. Everyone survived.
Among the 35 patients, 26 were infected with LayV alone, according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine. There was no evidence that they had been in close contact or had a history of common exposure, suggesting that human infection could be sporadic, the researchers said. Tests detected the virus in 27% of shrews, a known vector for similar henipaviruses, suggesting that the small furry, mole-like mammals could be a natural reservoir.
According to researchers from Beijing, Singapore and Australia, further investigations are needed to better understand the infection. The Taiwan Center for Disease Control said it paid attention to the report and wanted to initiate a screening for the virus.
The spread of germs from animals to humans, called zoonoses, is common and is responsible for more than six out of 10 known infectious diseases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of the time they cause limited diseases and become extinct without having a significant impact, but there are very impacting zoonoses such as psittacosis. However, the fact that it is not transmitted from human to human makes its diffusion much more controllable.
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The article Dozens of infections for a new dangerous Chinese virus, but, fortunately…. comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/decine-di-contagi-per-un-nuovo-pericoloso-virus-cinese-ma-per-fortuna/ on Thu, 11 Aug 2022 20:31:31 +0000.