New Deadly Virus Discovered In China

A new deadly virus has been discovered in China, with strond indications that it is tick-borne.

This tick-borne virus leads to a disease called "Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS)".

The virus has already claimed the lives of six people, with not less than 60 people infected, causing health officials in the country to be at an alert, states news platofrm Indian Express.

Most cases of infection from the virus emerged from the Jiangsu and Anhui provinces in Eastern China.

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A study into the virus' transmission is underway, as scientist warn that although the virus can be transmitted from ticks to humans but human-to-human transmission should not be dismissed.

This is not the first case of the virus outbreak.

What is SFTSV?

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSv) was first found in China in 2011 as a newly-discovered  clinical syndrome, and is a part of the Bunyavirus family.

The case fatality of the virus currently stands at between 16 and 30 percent, reported by the China Information System for Disease Control and Prevention.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has included SFTS among the top 10 priority disease because of the virus' infection and mortality rates.

People most vulnerable to the disease are hunters, farmers, and pet owners, as they may come into contact with animals that bear the Haemaphysalis longicornis tick.

Transmissions are usually from animals like sheep, goats, deer, and cattle, but these animals usually do not present any symptoms of infection.

Symptoms

Scientists say that an infected person has 13 incubation days before the symptoms set in, and the symptoms include; headache, chill, fatigue, diarrhea, vomiting,abdominal pain, congestion, myalgia, anorexia, nausea, lymphadenopathy, fever, among others.

This developnment comes after the outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan, China in December 2019, with the Bubon