A newly identified tick-borne virus is circulating in China, and doctors say it could already be spreading elsewhere—raising fresh concerns for Americans living in areas where its tick carrier has taken hold. "This discovery is a wake-up call," Dr. Tyler Evans, an infectious disease physician, public health expert and CEO of Wellness Equity Alliance, told Newsweek.
"Doctors had thousands of patients showing classic tick-borne symptoms—but testing negative for every virus we knew about. "Finding [this virus] finally explains what was making these people sick." Scientists in China have identified the virus, which causes an influenza-like illness marked by fever, fatigue, gastrointestinal symptoms and abnormal lab results. Researchers from the State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity in Beijing have named it the Asian longhorned tick nairovirus, or ALTNV.
Their findings, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, grew out of an effort to explain why roughly 30 percent of patients with symptoms of Dabie bandavirus (DBV)—a tick-borne illness with a fatality rate of 10 to 30 percent—were testing negative for it. Researchers tested samples from patients bitten by ticks at hospitals in regions of China where tick-borne viruses are common, using RNA sequencing and viral isolation to confirm the new pathogen. Of 3,163 patients tested, 10.4 percent were positive for ALTNV.
Among those who tested negative for DBV, that figure rose to 15.1 percent. "This isn't just a mild bug," Evans, who wrote Pandemics, Poverty, and Politics and has been involved in global health responses to the Ebola and COVID-19 crises, said. "It can cause severe fatigue, stomach problems, and a dangerous drop in platelet counts.
"Most people recover fine on their own, but the real danger is when it hits at the same time as another tick-borne virus." Patients infected with ALTNV alone most commonly reported fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, thrombocytopenia, or low platelet count, and elevated liver enzymes signaling tissue inflammation or damage. These patients recovered fully. The picture changes for patients coinfected with both ALTNV and DBV.
Compared with DBV infection alone, coinfected patients had higher rates of respiratory symptoms, 61 percent versus 38 percent, and kidney impairment too. Of the 38 coinfected patients identified, seven died—an 18.4 percent fatality rate. "What really worries doctors is when someone gets infected with both viruses at once.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
