| 2018-22 China Langya virus outbreak | |
|---|---|
| Disease | Langya henipavirus |
| Virus strain | LayV |
| Source | Transmitted from shrews |
| Location | China |
| First outbreak | Shandong, China |
| Date | 2018 – ongoing? |
| Confirmed cases | 35 |
| Deaths | 0 |
A possibly ongoing outbreak of Langya henipavirus (LayV) was reported in China in August 2022, with 35 identified cases spanning from 2018 to August 2022. The index case was a 53-year-old female farmer who had been in contact with shrews and presented with a fever, headache, cough and nausea in Qingdao city. The virus was named "Langya" after the hometown of the index patient in Shandong.
The virus does not appear to spread easily from person to person, consistent with the 35 reported cases being apparently independent from one another. In 26 of the 35 human cases reported in China, the only identified infectious agent was LayV; in the LayV-only cases, symptoms appeared such as fever, fatigue, and coughing. No deaths due to LayV had been reported as of August 2022.
LayV infection is a respiratory zoonotic disease which has been shown to be present in goats and dogs, where shrews appear to be a viral reservoir species. LayV is closely related to Hendra virus and Nipah virus, both of which cause respiratory infections that can be fatal, and both of which show low person-to-person transmissibility. The exact method of transmission between animals and from animal to person remains unknown. The closest viral strain match to LayV is Mojiang henipavirus (MojV), discovered in 2012 in rats in southern China and responsible for several fatal respiratory infections.
Initial detection of the virus was made during an infection surveillance study at three hospitals in Eastern China involving patients exhibiting a fever. The Taiwan Centers for Disease Control said they would monitor the virus closely and establish a genome sequencing method to identify the virus.
References
- ^ McCarthy, Simone (12 August 2022). "New Langya virus found in China could be 'tip of the iceberg' for undiscovered pathogens, researchers say". CNN. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
- Pandey, Nikhil, ed. (9 August 2022). "What is Langya, the fresh zoonotic virus outbreak that infected 35 people in China?". WION. Retrieved 2 September 2022.
- ^ Mallapaty, Smriti (25 August 2022). "New Animal Virus That Can Infect People Identified in China" (PDF). Nature. 608 (7924): 656–7. doi:10.1038/d41586-022-02175-z. PMID 35953571. S2CID 251517381.
- Lu, Donna (10 August 2022). "Newly identified Langya virus tracked after China reports dozens of cases". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
- Chen, Chieh-ling; Ken, Chao (8 August 2022). "CDC to monitor novel virus after China infection reports". Focus Taiwan. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
Further reading
- Zhang X, Jiang F, Zhu F, Zhang Y, Tan C, Anderson DE, Fan H, Dong L, Li C, Zhang P, Wang L, Liu W (4 August 2022). "A Zoonotic Henipavirus in Febrile Patients in China". N. Engl. J. Med. (Correspondence). 387 (5): 470–2. doi:10.1056/NEJMc2202705. PMID 35921459. S2CID 251315935.