Just as COVID-19 is ravaging the world, laying waste to its population, another virus has re-emerged in China.

According to New Indian Express, the tick-borne Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Bunyavirus (STFS Virus) has killed seven people and infected 60 others in the provinces of Jiangsu and Anhui in the country in East China, in the first half of the year.

Doctors have warned that the virus can be transferred between humans, via blood or mucous.

A woman from Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu, was the first diagnosed with the virus, when she suffered from fever and coughing.

Checks found a declined level of leukocytes - the white blood cells, in her body. She was discharged from the hospital after a month of treatment.

The STFS Virus is not new to China. Its scientists isolated the virus's pathogen back in 2011.

India's Times Now News wrote that migratory wild birds can also transmit the STFS virus, as they carry different parasites, including ticks, on their long-distance flights.

As for the mortality, reports say that this virus can kill as many as 30 percent of the patients it infects, especially among the elderly and those with compromised immunity.

To make it worse, despite the prior discovery of the virus, there is no vaccine available to fight it.

Ah, just when the world is struggling to stay afloat amid the damage caused by the COVID-19, along comes another virus - again from China.

Perhaps it is not yet time to take your much needed stroll in the garden or park, amid the bushes and vegetation, lest you want to risk contracting a tick-borne disease with the potential of turning into another pandemic.


Source: New Indian Express, Times Now News
Photo source: Astro Awani