The mysterious outbreak of Henipavirus

"If you can think about it, someone can do it."

A few days ago a New England Journal paper went mildly viral, and today news articles based on that paper and a pronouncement from the Taiwanese CDC, made it go viral. This will verge into conspiracy territory by sheer coincidence and mathematical defying odds.

A Zoonotic Henipavirus in Febrile Patients in China

The Hendra virus and the Nipah virus, which belong to the genus henipavirus in the family Paramyxoviridae, are known to infect humans and cause fatal disease; however, other related henipaviruses have been detected in bats, rodents, and shrews.During sentinel surveillance of febrile patients with a recent history of animal exposure in eastern China, a phylogenetically distinct henipavirus, named Langya henipavirus (LayV), was identified in a throat swab sample from one patient by means of metagenomic analysis and subsequent virus isolation. The genome of LayV is composed of 18,402 nucleotides with a genome organization that is identical to that of other henipaviruses. LayV is most phylogenetically related to Mojiang henipavirus, which was discovered in southern China.

Subsequent investigation identified 35 patients with acute LayV infection in the Shandong and Henan provinces of China, among whom 26 were infected with LayV only (no other pathogens were present). These 26 patients presented with fever (100% of the patients), fatigue (54%), cough (50%), anorexia (50%), myalgia (46%), nausea (38%), headache (35%), and vomiting (35%), accompanied by abnormalities of thrombocytopenia (35%), leukopenia (54%), and impaired liver (35%) and kidney (8%) function. A serosurvey of domestic animals detected seropositivity in goats (3 of 168 [2%]) and dogs (4 of 79 [5%]). Among 25 species of wild small animals surveyed, LayV RNA was predominantly detected in shrews (71 of 262 [27%]), a finding that suggests that the shrew may be a natural reservoir of LayV.

To make it easier to understand this is a novel virus they found in febrile patients by doing surveillance (when someone doesn’t fit or get diagnosed with any common disease, they often fall under these types of programs). None of the patients died so far, but the viruses have been linked to lower white blood cell counts in the infected patients, as reduced hepatic (liver) and renal (kidney) functions. They believe this virus to be zoonotic, meaning it actually jumps from animals to humans, which is not unusual as of late, since the US just experienced new cases of swine flu jumping from pigs to humans.

If people want, I can cover the distinct features of Hendra and the feared Niphan virus, but I won’t here for sake of brevity. What jumps to my eyes at first is the region the virus originated from at first. Mojiang. If you didn’t keep attention to the almost 3-year-long discussion about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 one of the biggest arguments is that the backbone (the basis for) to create of SARS-CoV-2 came from a mine in… Mojiang, well “it is just a coincidence bro”.

Yes, arguably, that can happen. Do you know what makes you think, though ?

Vector sequences in early WIV SRA sequencing data of SARS-CoV-2 inform on a potential large-scale security breach at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic

The paper above was authored by Daoyu in February of 2021. Translating into “normal speak”, he found traces of Nipah Henipahvirus contamination in the early samples of SARS-CoV-2, and there is quite the story behind this. And it has been argued for quite a while that the WIV has been manipulating and engineering dangerous strains of Nipah, for what purposes beat me.

The second point is simpler to understand.

• lower white blood cell counts in the infected patients, as reduced hepatic (liver) and renal (kidney) functions.

Viruses from this family (Nipah, Hendra) are known to cause these, at some level or another, but there is one specific viral infection known to do this at a systemic range at different levels. SARS-CoV-2.

You must read the last published piece (among many other in fact) to understand this isn’t merely a “vaccine” thing, this is a SARS-CoV-2 widespread effect. Everyone at one level, or another is being inflicted with effects I described at different levels, the mere fact that newer strains of SARS-CoV-2 are so effective at antagonizing Interferon responses should be clue enough.

Weeks ago Daoyu saw one of my tweets and argumented that the surfacing of these diseases might be from an immunological shift (both from vaccines and virus), I concurred with such assertion so much that I mentioned it a few times in my Substack.

While I will not publish the reasoning further than what I hinted at so far, I agree with such a statement and would go further. For the next few years, we will have to bear the brunt of living with new outbreaks of old diseases, and zootonic jumps which have never been a problem so far, but as I wrote quite extensively, if not clear enough (I want you to learn too) it will be somewhat localized problem for a period, as we… rebuild our immune systems.

I am often reminded of this scene from one of my favorite TV series, at an instinctual level.

You should make your own judgment about my words here.

And while I try hard to stay away from multiple posts a day, events are happening so fast, at such levels I might have to do it sometimes. As the last message, take care of your immune systems.

A very big thank you to all supporters here and those who use KoFi =) !