Hot on the trail. bloodhounds of the Chinese illness at work in the cave in Mojiang.
Courtesy of Jin Qi
in June 2012, three men remove slag of abandoned copper mine in southwest China fell ill severe pneumonia and died. Six months later, the researchers in the mine cave-an artificial cave carved from a research hillside in pathogens. After anal swabs bats, rats and shrews musk living in the cave, the team found what it says is a new virus that could have shot the workers.
The alleged pathogen looks like a kind of virus known as henipaviruses, two of which are fatal: Hendra virus, discovered 20 years ago in Australia when he started killing horses-from four people who have been in contact with infected horses died and Nipah virus, the cause of periodic outbreaks among people in Southeast Asia since 1998. the third Henipavirus confirmed, Cedar virus was first reported in Australia in 2012; it does not infect humans. For all three species, animals that harbor the virus in the wild-state natural reservoir appear to be the fruit bats called flying foxes.
The new virus, paramyxovirus appointed Mojiang (MOJV) after the county of Yunnan province, where he was found, joins a growing list of species which share genetic similarities with henipaviruses and family members of Paramyxoviridae comprising henipaviruses. Bats and shrews in Yunnan cave tested negative for the new virus the Henipa-like; three out of nine rats were infected. "It is not entirely surprising to find sequences Henipa as rodents," as rats are the natural reservoir for some paramyxovirus, said Lin-Fa Wang of the Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong, which has not participated in Mojiang. MOJV study "could be a bridging virus" among those bats and rodents, "said Wang, one of the team leaders who discovered Cedar virus.
the three victims in Yunnan have succumbed long before scientists arrived on the scene, so "it has not established a direct relationship between human infection and MOJV" says Jin Qi, director of the State Key Laboratory of molecular Virology and genetic engineering in Beijing, and head of the new work, reported in the June issue of emerging infectious diseases . The new virus and parents, if they exist, are keeping a low profile. Jin team sampled bats in the cave Mojiang again and empty newcomer. More recently, he says, a "systemic viral investigation" in 38 of bat species across China led his team failed to implement henipaviruses. He believes the rodents should be studied in more as potential wildlife reservoirs Henipavirus. But for now, said Jin MOJV is "more likely a curiosity."
* Correction, March 21, 11:28: The original version of this article does not contain a link to the research paper. We have corrected this.
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