KUALA LUMPUR: A new virus, which can be transmitted from animals to humans, has infected 35 people in Shandong and Henan provinces in China, say news reports.
The virus, from the same family as the deadly Nipah and Hendra viruses, is named Langya henipavirus or LayV.
Al-Jazeera, citing a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine, reported that the infections were recorded between 2018 and 2021.
The researchers behind the study however said there has been no evidence to indicate human to human transmission of the virus so far.
They said the Langya henipavirus or LayV can cause acute fever, fatigue, cough as well as loss of appetite.
Some patients had body aches, nausea, vomiting and headaches while several had impaired liver function.
They found that the Langya RNA was most predominant in shrews, a type of small mammal.
As there was no close contacy or common exposure history among those infected, the researchers said this would suggest the infection in humans was sporadic. Contact tracing was also conducted for nine patients with 15 close contact family members and no transmission was found.
However they noted that the sample size was too small to fully determine LayV's human to human transmission.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reported that experts were still trying to work out if the virus can spread from person to person.