What is the Langya henipavirus and what the experts think
A group of researchers has identified a new virus. It is called Langya henipavirus or LayV and 35 cases have been recorded so far. Here's what the researchers found
A new type of animal-derived henipavirus that can infect humans has been identified in eastern China's Shandong province and central China's Henan province.
Her name is Langya (LayV) and she has had 35 cases so far, according to an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) by a group of Chinese and Singaporean scientists.
WHAT IS A HENIPAVIRUS
Henipavirus, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Cdc) explain , is a genus of single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the Paramyxovirus family.
Henipaviruses can cause serious diseases in animals and humans and, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), are classified as viruses of biosafety level 4 , i.e. with mortality rates between 40 and 75%. numbers much higher than the coronavirus death rate.
According to thepaper.cn from Shanghai cited by Global Times , they are also "one of the important emerging causes of zoonoses in the Asia-Pacific region".
VIRUS HENDRA AND VIRUS NIPAH
Among the henipaviruses identified, the Hendra virus and the Nipah virus, are the only ones known to infect humans and cause fatal diseases; however, the NEJM article explains, other related henipaviruses have been identified in bats, rodents and shrews.
Other species, such as the cedar virus, the Ghana bat virus, and the Mojiang virus, are not known to cause human disease.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE LANGYA VIRUS
During sentinel surveillance of febrile patients with a recent history of animal exposure in eastern China, the researchers explain, a phylogenetically distinct henipavirus, called Langya henipavirus (LayV), was identified through throat swabs by metagenomic analysis and then by pathogen isolation.
From the analyzes, Langya was found to be more phylogenetically related to the Mojiang henipavirus, discovered in southern China.
This, the researchers suggest, is a point that should be considered for improving serological testing.
THE CASES
In all, 35 patients with acute Langya infection were identified in the Chinese provinces of Shandong and Henan, of whom 26 were infected with Langya only, i.e. no other pathogens were present.
SYMPTOMS
Among the symptoms found in the 26 patients, all had fever, followed by other reactions that were not always the same: fatigue (54%), cough (50%), anorexia (50%), myalgia (46%), nausea (38%), headache (35%) and vomiting (35%), accompanied by abnormalities of thrombocytopenia (35%), leukopenia (54%) and impaired hepatic (35%) and renal (8%) function.
THE SEROLOGICAL INVESTIGATION ON ANIMALS
A serological survey of domestic animals, the study reports, found seropositivity in goats (3 out of 168) and dogs (4 out of 79).
Among the 25 small wild animal species analyzed, the virus's RNA was found predominantly in shrews (71 out of 262) – a finding that suggests it may be a natural reservoir for LayV.
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF HUMAN-TO-HUMAN TRANSMISSION
Although human-to-human transmission has been reported in the case of the Nipah virus, there is currently no evidence of this type of transmission for the Langya virus.
Infected patients had no close contact or a common history of exposure, which suggests – according to experts – that infection in the human population "may be sporadic" and caused mostly by contact with infected animals.
"The contact tracing between 9 patients and 15 close relatives did not reveal any transmission of LayV in close contact, but our sample size was too small to determine the status of human-to-human transmission of LayV," it reads. in the article.
THERAPIES AND VACCINES
Currently there are no vaccines or therapies for henipaviruses, the only treatment is the management of complications.
NO PANIC BUT EYES OPEN
However, according to Wang Lin-fa, professor of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Program at Duke-NUS Medical School and one of the authors of the NEJM paper , given that so far the cases of LayV have not been fatal or very serious, "there is no 'you need to panic ”.
However, he also added that "this is still a cause for alarm, since many viruses existing in nature have unpredictable results when they infect humans".
Wang Xinyu, deputy chief medical officer at the infectious disease department at Fudan University-affiliated Huashan Hospital, also reiterated to the Global Times that: “The coronavirus will not be the last infectious disease to cause a global pandemic, as new infectious diseases will have an ever greater impact on human daily life ”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/cose-il-langya-henipavirus-e-cosa-pensano-gli-esperti/ on Wed, 10 Aug 2022 08:22:10 +0000.