Langya: Scientists monitoring newly-detected virus after 35 infected in China

FILE - Nipah virus, which is also from the Paramyxoviridae family and the genus Henipavirus, is pictured. (Photo By BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images) An international team of scientists is monitoring a new virus that has infected at least 35 people in eastern China and is thought to have potentially emerged in shrews and passed on to humans.

The virus, called Langya henipavirus (LayV), was reported in patients in the Shandong and Henan provinces of China and symptoms included fever and fatigue, as well as some reporting coughing, nausea, headache, and vomiting.

The discovery was highlighted in a letter by researchers from China, Singapore, and Australia, published on Aug. 4 in the New England Journal of Medicine.There have been no deaths or serious illnesses reported in cases of Langya henipavirus, so there is "no need to panic," Wang Linfa, an emerging infectious disease professor at Duke-NUS Medical School and one of the researchers involved in the study, told China’s state-run, English-language newspaper Global Times.However, Linfa added that there is still a cause for alert as many related viruses have unpredictable results when they infect humans, according to the newspaper.Scientists tested 25 species of small animals and the LayV virus was detected in 27% of wild shrews.

They said this suggests that shrews may be a "natural reservoir" for LayV. About 5% of dogs and 2% of goats also tested positive for it.FILE - A wild shrew is pictured.