UK health officials are warning Brits to avoid contact with animals while overseas after a new virus was detected in China.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued the advice in response to a cluster of Langya Henipavirus infections in China.
At least 35 people have caught the virus, which experts believe was originally transmitted by animals, including shrews.
Langya Henipavirus, known as “Langya”, belongs to a family of viruses known to kill up to 75% of severe infected cases.
However, none of the current Langya infections have yet been fatal.
A UKHSA spokesperson told the Mirror: “We are aware of a recently published paper identifying a new virus, called Langya henipavirus, in a small number of people in China over a three year period.
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"These individuals all had contact with animals, and the virus was found in some wild animals in the region. There was no evidence of human to human transmission.
"We are reviewing the findings, together with experts at the Animal and Plant Health Agency. We consider the risk to general population in the UK to be very low.
"We continue to encourage everyone travelling overseas to follow good hygiene measures and avoid contact with wild and domestic animals where possible.”
Chinese doctors have raised the alarm after Langya, also known as LayV, has seen a rise in infection rates in the country.
The virus was detected after scientists checked patients who were running a fever, according to an article published in New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
The symptoms reported included a fever, fatigue, muscle pain, loss of appetite, a cough, nausea, vomiting and headaches.
The patients had been in contact with animals before their diagnosis.
The New England Journal of Medicine article reads: “There was no close contact or common exposure history among the patients, which suggests that the infection in the human population may be sporadic.
“Contact tracing of nine patients with 15 close-contact family members revealed no close-contact LayV transmission.
“But our sample size was too small to determine the status of human-to-human transmission for LayV.”
Where does Langya virus come from?
Chinese researchers found the virus in 71 of 262 shrews tested after initial infection reports.
Alongside shrews, the virus was also found in dogs and goats.
Langya is from the same family of viruses known as Nipah, which - similar to Covid - spreads through respiratory droplets.
The virus has been listed as one of the viruses most likely to cause the next pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
