China Discovers A Virus That May Affect Brain Health; Know More About WELV

New Delhi: Coronavirus wreaked havoc across the world after originating in China’s Wuhan, Mpox is emerging as a threat in Africa and slowly spreading to other countries.

Now, another potentially dangerous virus has been discovered in China.

The Wetland virus (WELV), which spreads through tick bites, was first detected in a patient undergoing treatment in a Jinzhou hospital five years ago.

According to a study, WELV can cause neurological disease.

A detailed report by Live Science revealed that a 61-year-old man complained of symptoms like fever, headache and vomiting five days after visiting a wetland park in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in northern China.

The patient told doctors he had been bitten by ticks in the park.

Antibiotics failed to cure the patient, leading doctors to believe that he was not suffering a bacterial infection.

All kinds of blood tests were done, revealing a previously unidentified orthonairovirus, a family of viruses associated with ticks.

Orthnairoviruses can cause rare and often disease like Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, which spreads through tick bites or contact with bodily fluids from infected people.

WELV — a member of orthonairovirus genus in the Nairoviridae family — was identified in 17 people in Inner Mongolia and some other places in China through reverse-transcriptase-polymerase-chain-reaction assay.

Once the new strain WELV – which wasn’t previously detected in animals or humans — was identified, researchers investigated its prevalence in ticks and animals in northern China, including the park that the man had visited.

Around 14,600 ticks were collected and analysed, of which about 2 per cent came out positive for WELV. The virus was also found in a few sheep, horses, pigs, and rodents.

Blood samples from forest rangers in the region were also examined, and antibodies to WELV were found to have developed in 12 out of 640 individuals. The virus was detected in 20 people with symptoms ranging from fever, dizziness, and headaches to nausea and diarrhoea.

All the patients eventually recovered, but laboratory experiments on mice showed that WELV can cause lethal infections and also impact the nervous system.