New Tick-Borne Virus Spreads Across East China, Sixty Infected, Seven Dead So Far

Doctors warned that tick bite is the major transmission route, as long as people remain cautious and there is no need to over panic over such virus contagion

(Photo by Feng Li/Getty Images)

China is emerging as a hotbed of new diseases and the recent one being a tick-borne virus that has killed seven people and infected 60 others in China. As per the report by the state-run Global Times more than 37 people in East China's Jiangsu Province have been contracted with the SFTS Virus in the first half of the year. It also warned about the chances of its human-to-human transmission. However, 23 people were later found to have been infected in East China''s Anhui province, as per the state-run media. What are the symptoms? Initially, a woman who contracted the virus showed onset of symptoms such as fever and coughing. She belonged to Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu. It was found that the leukocyte declined along with the blood platelet. After a month of treatment, she was discharged from the hospital. How many succumbed so far? At least seven people have died in Anhui and East China''s Zhejiang province due to the virus. What is the latest SFTS virus? SFTS Virus is not a new virus because the country has isolated pathogen of the virus in 2011.The virus belongs to the Bunyavirus category. It is being observed by virologists that the infection caused by the ticks may have been passed on to humans and can be transmitted between humans, it said. 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. Doctors warned that tick bite is the major transmission route, as long as people remain cautious, there''s no need to over panic over such virus contagion, it said.