A new virus that spreads through tick bites has been discovered in China. The virus, dubbed Wetland virus (WELV), was first detected in a hospital patient treated in Jinzhou in June 2019.
According to media reports, the virus can cause neurological disease. The case findings were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. A report by Live Science reveals that the 61-year-old experienced fever, headache and vomiting approximately five days after visiting a park in a large wetland in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of northern China. He told doctors he’d been bitten by ticks at the park. Antibiotics didn’t ease the man’s symptoms, indicating that bacteria didn’t cause the infection.
When the man’s blood samples were examined the doctors were shocked to see a never-before-seen orthonairovirus — a group of related viruses that includes several carried by ticks. This group of viruses can also cause Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a rare and deadly illness that can spread to humans via tick bites or through exposure to infected people’s bodily fluids.
The scientists claim that WELV had not previously been seen in animals or humans. After the virus was identified, the researchers started examining for it in ticks and animals in northern China, including in the wetland park the man had visited.]
The team of researchers nearly 14,600 ticks and grouped them by location and species so they could be analyzed in batches. Interestingly, around 2 percent of those batches tested positive for WELV genetic material.
Moreover, the virus was also detected in a small percentage of the sheep, horses and pigs the researchers looked at, as well as in a handful of rodents called Transbaikal zokor (Myospalax psilurus).
The researchers also analysed blood samples from forest rangers in the region, finding antibodies to WELV in 12 out of 640 individuals. When the scientists found the presence of virus in 20 individuals, they witnessed symptoms ranging from fever, dizziness and headache to nausea and diarrhoea. One patient even fell into a coma due to high white blood cell counts in the brain and spinal fluid.
Although the patients recovered, lab experiments on mice showed that WELV can cause lethal infections and potentially affect the nervous system. The finings also suggest that the virus can cause mild disease in some cases but it has the potential to cause severe health issues, particularly involving the brain.
