China races to identify transmission of Langya henipavirus after 35 cases identified in Shandong and Henan provinces
The Langya henipavirus (LayV), which has not infected humans before, has been detected in two Chinese provinces, with health officials now scrambling to identify the cause of transmission.
Health officials in China are monitoring the spread of a new virus after reports of more than two dozen infections across the country.
The Langya henipavirus (LayV) has so far infected 35 people in the Chinese provinces of Shandong and Henan, Taiwan's Centres for Disease Control (CDC) reported.
CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang said officials have not yet reported human-to-human transmission of the virus and that the 35 patients have not had close contact with each other, according to the Taipei Times.
Mr Chuang said 26 out of 35 patients infected with LayV experienced symptoms such as fever, fatigue and coughing and while no deaths have been reported so far, the situation requires further monitoring.
The 26 patients developed symptoms including fever (100 per cent), fatigue (54 per cent), a cough (50 per cent), loss of appetite (50 per cent), muscle pain (46 per cent), nausea (38 per cent), headache (35 per cent) and vomiting (35 per cent).
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found all 35 patients had a history of contact with animals.
"There was no close contact or common exposure history among the patients, which suggests that the infection in the human population may be sporadic," it wrote.
"Contact tracing of nine 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 for LayV."
The Langya henipavirus is entirely novel, meaning it has not infected humans before, The Sun reported.
However, LayV is in the Henipavirus family, of which two species - the Hendra virus and Nipah virus - have been previously reported.
According to the World Health Organisation, the Nipah virus is a zoonotic illness that is transmitted to people from animals, and can also be transmitted through contaminated food or directly from person to person.
The symptoms of Nipah range from asymptomatic to acute respiratory illness and fatal encephalitis.
The CDC is yet to determine whether the virus can be transmitted among humans but will establish a standardised nucleic acid testing method to identify the virus.