Should We Worry about This New Virus They Detected in China?

Worry seems to be fading over SARS-CoV-2. We can't have that! So nature has provided us with a new potential source of concern.

It's called novel Langya henipavirus (LayV). It was discovered in China in 2018 but just now formally identified. 

People who catch it have fever, fatigue, cough, loss of appetite and muscle aches. No deaths have been associated with it.

As with monkeypox, I'm having trouble getting too excited about this one. At present the main transmission route seems to be from animals to humans. The main culprit is the shrew, with more than 25% of those tested showing up positive. So if you can avoid shrews—which I manage to do every single day—you're probably not going to catch it.

They are not yet sure if it's possible for this to transmit the virus from humans to other humans. It's always possible it could evolve in that direction if we get too many human infections, but there have only been 35 reported so far.

If this thing has been around since before SARS-CoV-2 and it's not growing like wildfire, we probably don't have a lot to worry about. At least I hope not.

Image by Harald Matern from Pixabay

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