Haunted with and hunting for viruses

Gao, George Fu; Wu, Ying

Yu Xue-Jie and colleagues [27] reviewed the new bunyavirus, SFTSV, identified in China. As the virus discoverers, they have overviewed the whole process of the discovery, which is helpful and meaningful for the new virus discoveries in the future. The disease caused by SFTSV, with a CFR of 12%, had been in China for a couple of years before the causative agent was finally identified. There are still a lot of questions remained unknown for this new virus and vigorous studies are in great need. The transmission route of the virus has not been clarified but tick as vector is suspected. Domestic and wild animals, e.g., goats, boars, cattle and dogs, are believed to be the virus-amplifying hosts. Therefore the effective control measures are still under evaluation. Vaccines protecting the SFTSV infection are under its way in Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Recently a similar virus has been identified in both Japan and USA (a new name of Heartland virus was proposed for the US virus) [9] .