He virus Langya (LayV) it is part of a kind of virus called henipavirus which are typically housed in fruit bats. Among these are the Hendra virus, which was first identified in Australia in 1994, known to infect humans and horses (killing 14 horses and their trainer). Even the virus Nipah, first identified in 1999 in Malaysia, is part of this genus and frequent outbreaks occur in Bangladesh among people who have contact with pigs. However, more recent outbreaks are thought to have been due to food contaminated with the urine or saliva of infected bats. Both infections have high mortality rates in people. This family of viruses was the inspiration for the fictional virus MEV-1 in the film Contagion by Steven Soderbergh from 2011. However, LayV seems to be more closely related tohenipavirus di Mojiang which in 2012 caused the death of three miners working in an abandoned copper mine in southern China, who died of pneumonia that left them no escape. LayV is the sixth species identified belonging to the genus henipavirus and was isolated by Chinese researchers during routine surveillance in late 2018 from a throat swab sample from a patient who had had contact with animals. Once the virus was identified, researchers looked for the virus in other people and 35 people in the Chinese provinces of Shandong and Henan are suspected to have been infected between December 2018 and May 2021.
12 August 2022 | 15:49
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