A new infectious disease caused by a tick-borne virus has killed seven people and infected 60 others in China, official media in China has reported.
More than 37 people in East China’s Jiangsu Province contracted with the Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (SFTS) Virus in the first half of the year. Later, 23 people were found to have been infected in East China”s Anhui province, state-run Global Times quoted media reports
Sheng Jifang, a doctor from the first affiliated hospital under Zhejiang University, said that the possibility of human-to-human transmission could not be excluded; patients can pass the virus to others via blood or mucous.
A woman from Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu, who suffered from the virus showed onset of symptoms such as fever, coughing. Doctors found a decline of leukocyte, blood platelet inside of her body. After a month of treatment, she was discharged from the hospital.
At least seven people have died in Anhui and East China”s Zhejiang province due to the virus, the report said.
SFTS Virus is not a new virus. China has isolated pathogen of the virus in 2011, and it belongs to the Bunyavirus category.
SFTS virus (SFTSV) is a new member of the genus Phlebovirus in the family Bunyaviridae . The closest relative is Bhanja virus, a tickborne human pathogenic phlebovirus that causes febrile illness and meningitis. Bunyaviruses are largely spherical, enveloped particles with a diameter of 80 to 120 nm. Particles carry three genomic segments designated large (L), medium (M), and small (S).
Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging hemorrhagic fever caused by a tick-borne banyangvirus and is associated with high fatality. Despite increasing incidence of SFTS and serious public health concerns in East Asia, the pathogenesis of lethal SFTS virus (SFTSV) infection in humans is not fully understood. Numbers of postmortem examinations to determine target cells of the viral infection have so far been limited.
Based on previous cases, the virus can be transmitted from infected animals or people to others via blood, respiratory tract and wounds, Sheng Jifang, an expert on the novel bunya virus and director of the infectious disease department with the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Ticks, from larvae to adults, feed on the blood of warm-blooded animals, according to Sheng. Novel bunya virus infections increase significantly in summer when the ticks breed actively. Therefore, the tick-borne virus could possibly cause a local epidemic.
The clinical manifestations of SFTS mainly include fever, lower quantities of platelets and white blood cells, and multi-organ dysfunction. Patients with mild cases of this disease can mostly heal themselves, but patients with severe cases often suffer from multi-organ dysfunction or even multi-organ failure.
Ticks are mainly found in mountainous regions, as well as areas where there are wild animals, Leng Peien, director of the vector control division with Shanghai’s Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Global Times. Some wetlands and forest parks in the city are also habitats for ticks.
