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Health officials in China are monitoring the spread of a new viral disease that can cause fever, fatigue, coughing, loss of appetite, muscle pain, nausea, headache, vomiting – and in severe cases, liver and kidney failure.

As of yesterday, 35 people in the provinces of Shandong and Henan in northeast China had been stricken with the novel disease Langya henipavirus (LayV), which was first detected in late 2018 but which is not known to have infected humans before.

The Taiwan CDC is working on ways to track LayV and sequence its genome, according to Newsweek.

The virus is also known to exist in certain animals, including shrews. It seems to be contagious. Early reports suggest LayV can most likely be transferred person-to-person.

LayV is a member of the henipavirus family, related to Hendra and Nipah, which are transmitted by bats. Henipaviruses are classified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as biosafety Level 4 viruses, a group so dangerous they must be handled with extreme caution.

Nipah virus, for instance, can kill between 40% and 75% of those infected – a death rate far beyond coronaviruses like Covid-19.

No vaccines currently exist to protect against henipaviruses, which puts them in a different league to the viruses that cause Covid or monkeypox. The only treatment for LayV is supportive or palliative care to manage complications.

Monkeypox, the rare disease which has been grabbing headlines lately, is related to smallpox but very seldom kills its victims. Monkeypox originated in Africa. Elsewhere, monkeypox has so far been found almost exclusively among “men who have sex with men”.

Written by Peter Needham