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Beijing: Scientists said that dozens of people in China were infected with a new virus of animal origin called Langia, but at this stage they ruled out the risk of transmission from one person to another.
Langia virus causes symptoms in humans such as fever, fatigue, cough, nausea and headache.
Scientists believe the shrew, a small mouse-like mammal, may be the animal that allowed the new virus to be transmitted to humans.
The injuries were recorded in the Chinese provinces of Shandong (east) and Henan (central).
And 35 people have been infected 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 one of the pathogens, assuming the presence of “sporadic” infections between 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.
The Langia virus was first discovered in 2018.
But this time the virus was officially identified thanks to a system that detects 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.
