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Langya henipavirus
has been discovered in China, with 35 human infections reported so far, Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said, adding that the nation would establish
a nucleic acid testing method to identify the virus.
A study titled "A Zoonotic Henipavirus in Febrile Patients in China" that was published in the
New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday said that a new henipavirus associated with a fever-causing human illness was identified in China.
The study said an investigation
identified 35 patients with acute infection of the Langya henipavirus in China's Shandong and Henan provinces, and that
26 of them were infected with the Langya virus only, with no other pathogens.
The 26 patients developed symptoms including fever (100 percent), fatigue (54 percent), a cough (50 percent), loss of appetite (50 percent), muscle pain (46 percent), nausea (38 percent), headache (35 percent) and vomiting (35 percent).
They also showed a decrease in white blood cells (54 percent), low platelet count (35 percent), liver failure (35 percent) and kidney failure (8 percent).
When asked for confirmation, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) on Sunday that said according to the study,
human-to-human transmission of the virus has not been reported, and that a serological survey of domestic animals found
2 percent of the tested goats and 5 percent of the tested dogs were positive.
Test results from 25 wild animal species suggest that
the shrew might be a natural reservoir of the Langya henipavirus, as the virus was found in 27 percent of the shrew subjects, he said.
Comment: WCVB news Boston interviewed some of those monkeypox cases directly attributed to the vaccine: