Another virus that has apparently made the leap to humans from animals has emerged in China and is giving public health officials there and in Taiwan a sense of deja-vu.

The new Langya henipavirus, also known as LayV, was first detected in 2018 but was formally identified in a paper published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine by researchers from China, Singapore, and Australia.

LayV belongs to a class of viruses known as zoonotic viruses because of their tendency to jump to humans from animals. The researchers said LayV has been detected primarily in shrews so far, but was also found in goats and dogs.

The virus was detected in 35 patients in the eastern province of Shandong and central China’s Henan province, many of whom reported flu-like symptoms such as fatigue, fever, nausea, and a cough after coming in contact with animals. So far, no fatalities have been reported.

The researchers said they have found no evidence that the virus can be transmitted between humans, but cautioned that similar viruses can behave unpredictably.

No cases have been reported in the United States or outside of China.

The virus emergency harkens back to late 2019 and early 2020, when word first began trickling out of China about the emergence of another zoonotic virus, Covid-19. Some researchers believe that virus originated in a so-called wet market in China, where fresh meat and live animals are often sold. Others believe it originated in a Chinese laboratory.

Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control told the Taipei Times that it would be working to develop a test for the new virus and tracing possible transmission to the island. The director general of the center, Chuang Jen-hsiang, said residents there should be aware of the outbreak and monitor developments closely.

A report in China’s state-run Global Times quoted a physician in the department of infectious diseases at Huashan Hospital, Wang Xinyu, as saying the world should not be surprised at the emergence new viruses, as demonstrated by the Covid pandemic of 2020.
“Coronavirus will not be the last infectious disease to cause a pandemic worldwide, as new infectious diseases will have an increasingly greater impact on human daily life,” Mr. Wang told the newspaper.