BEIJING (AP) – In China, 35 people have contracted a newly detected henipa virus, which likely came from an animal. In Shangdong and Henan provinces, infections with the pathogen known as Langya henipavirus (LayV) have mainly occurred among farmers who had previously had close contact with animals.

This was reported by a team of scientists from China, Singapore and Australia in the specialist magazine “New England Journal of Medicine”. The infections were therefore discovered between the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2021.

There was no evidence of direct human-to-human transmission. Researchers reported no deaths. Of the 35 patients, 26 were infected exclusively with LayV. These patients suffered from symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough and muscle aches. In some of the patients, there were signs of liver and kidney damage. In animal tests, the virus was mainly found in shrews, as reported by researchers around Wei Liu from the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology in Beijing.

Henipaviruses first discovered in the 1990s

The virus is probably of animal origin and appears only sporadically in humans. However, further studies are needed to better understand the pathogen and the human diseases associated with it.

According to the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI) in Greifswald, henipavirus infections were first recognized in the 1990s as the cause of respiratory and nerve diseases in humans and animals. Henipaviruses include Hendra and Nipah viruses. According to the FLI, hendraviruses were first proven to cause severe respiratory disease in horses in Australia in 1994. However, the natural hosts of hendraviruses are flying foxes. So far, seven trainers and veterinarians have been infected through contact with affected horses, four of these infections have been fatal.

Nipah virus emerged in pigs in Malaysia and Singapore in the late 1990s. Several people have been infected by pigs, although the natural hosts here are fruit bats. More than 100 of those infected died of encephalitis. Over a million pigs have been slaughtered in Malaysia. In Bangladesh and India, people are repeatedly infected with Nipah and there are also deaths.

© dpa-infocom, dpa:220810-99-335809/4