A new animal virus in China infects dozens of people

Sources-INA 
Scientists said dozens of people in China have been infected with a new virus of animal origin called Langia, but at this point they have ruled out the risk of human-to-human transmission.
The Langia virus causes symptoms in humans such as fever, fatigue, cough, nausea and headache, and scientists believe that the shrew, a small mouse-like mammal, may be the animal that allowed the transmission of the new virus to humans.
Infections were recorded in the Chinese provinces of Shandong (east) and Henan (central), and 35 people were infected with this virus in China, according to a report published in early August by the "New England Journal of Medicine", a leading medical journal in the United States.

The report emphasized that the patients, most of whom were farmers, had neither "close contact" nor "co-exposure" to a pathogen, assuming "sporadic" infections in humans.

Some of them suffered from a defect in the blood cells, while others suffered from a defect in the functions of the liver and kidneys, according to the report.

Langia virus was first detected in 2018, but this time the virus was officially identified thanks to a system for detecting acute fever and animal exposure history.

Scientists consider that it is premature at this stage to comment on the possibility of transmission of this virus from one person to another, given the small number of infections.

According to the researchers from China, Singapore and Australia who contributed to writing the report, more research is needed to better understand the diseases associated with the virus.

Virologist Linfa Wang of  Duke-NUS Medical College in Singapore, one of the authors of the report, told the Global Times that no serious or fatal cases of Langia virus had been reported so far.