What is the Chinese Langya Virus?

 A new virus was found by researchers in eastern China in 2018 called the Langya Virus. It is a zoonotic virus which spreads from shrew animals to humans. It belongs to the Henipavirus genus, which contains RNA viruses and previously had only five members. According to official records, 35 people have contracted the virus so far in the Shandong and Henan provinces. 

Discovery

Researchers first came upon the virus in late 2018 during a program in which they were monitoring people who suffered from fever after coming in contact with animals. A sample of the new virus was taken through a throat swab and meta-genomically analysed, after which the virus was isolated.  

After the Langya virus identification, researchers observed samples for 2 years from patients who contracted a fever following animal exposure. Through this, they came upon the Langya virus in 34 more people. After testing multiple potential animal sources, the primary source of the virus was found to be the shrew as 27% of the samples tested positive. Shrew are small mammals which have previously spread diseases like mammarenavirus and hantavirus.

Symptoms

Symptoms of the Langya virus include: 

●      Fever (all patients) 

●      Fatigue, cough, and loss of appetite (almost 50% of patients) 

●      Impaired liver function (one-third of patients) 

●      Impaired kidney function (8% of patients) 

●      Myalgia

●      Headache

●      Vomiting

Transmission

As of now, there is no evidence to indicate human-to-human transmission of the Langya virus. Researchers discovered that none of the patients acquired the virus from each other. Also, none of them spread it further to their homes. However, this does not completely nullify the possibility of human-to-human transmission occurring.

The researchers stated that their sample pool was too restricted to be definitive. They wrote, "Contact tracing of 9 patients with 15 close contact family members revealed no close-contact LayV transmission, but our sample size was too small to determine the status of human-to-human transmission". 

Monitoring will be continued by researchers, and the Centers for Disease Control in Taiwan intend to work on testing for the Langya virus. 

Disease Potential

This is a new virus and further research is required. According to experts, given its route of transmission and previous information available on viruses from the same family, it does not pose a major threat and may be contained by limiting contact with animal hosts. The current evidence also suggests that serious symptoms and fatalities are unlikely to occur due to the Langya virus. Moreover, researchers have commented that outbreaks of such zoonotic diseases are very limited, but caution is still necessary, especially considering the potential for mutations.