On Friday 12 August 2022, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) confirmed that, as part of its epidemic intelligence activities, it will monitor the occurrence of infections in human from Langya henipavirus (LayV), a previously unknown virus.
The LayV, also known as Langya virus, was first reported by a group of Chinese scientists in the scientific journal New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday 4 August 2022. The new virus species was detected through sentinel surveillance (monitoring of rate of occurrence of specific diseases / conditions) of febrile cases (people reporting fever) with a history of recent animal exposure.
According to the scientific report, 35 patients with acute LayV infection were detected in the Shandong and Henan provinces of China between April 2018 and August 2021. Symptoms included fever, fatigue, cough, anorexia, myalgia, nausea, headache and vomiting.
For cases with known occupation of the infected people, the majority (85%) were farmers and, in the absence of any known contact between the infected people, it is currently thought that the cases are the results of animal-to-human transfers, also known as zoonotic transmissions. Moreover, since the majority of cases have been reported in farmers who have direct and more often contact with animals, zoonotic transmission is the more likely reason for the infections.
The scientists reported LayV antibodies in goats (in 2% of the test samples) and dogs (in 5% of test samples), and LayV RNA in three rodent species and two shrew species.
Currently, there are no known cases of human-to-human transmission. Further investigation is required to understand the mode(s) of transmission and natural hosts of the LayV virus.
