A never-before-seen virus that may pose a threat to humans has been detected in Florida.
The pathogen belongs to the same family of viruses that cause measles and mumps and was discovered by a researcher under bizarre circumstances.
Dr John Lednicky’s pet cat Pepper dropped the common cotton mouse at his feet and, being a molecular biologist, he decided to take it to his lab for further testing.
He discovered a brand new type of jeilongvirus that had evolved from more common strains found in Africa, Asia and South America.
These viruses were previously thought to only infect rodents, but have been recently found in bats and cats, which the study authors say suggests it has the capacity to jump to other species, like humans.
Researchers still don’t understand if the new virus makes people sick, but jeilongviruses have occasionally caused severe respiratory illness – with cough, fever and trouble breathing – in humans. They have not been known to be fatal.
Dr Lednicky, from the University of Florida, said this new virus: ‘grows equally well in rodent, human, and nonhuman primate (monkey) cells, making it a great candidate for a spillover event’.
This was surprising, and raises questions about what other diseases these animals could be carrying into our homes, Emily DeRuyter, a doctoral candidate on the research team, said.
DeRuyter added: ‘We were not anticipating a virus of this sort, and the discovery reflects the realization that many viruses that we don’t know about circulate in animals that live in close proximity to humans.’
These bugs are in the same family as the viruses that cause measles, mumps and many respiratory flus. The researchers named their new virus Gainesville rodent jeilong virus 1 (GRJV1) in their paper, published in the journal Pathogens.
When they isolated the jeilongvirus, they found it was able to activate within samples of both monkey and human cells, suggesting that in the future, the disease could evolve to infect humans who come into contact with excrement from an infected rodent.
However, Dr Lednicky said that people shouldn’t be concerned about their new discovery.
Even if the virus is able to spread to humans, the researchers are unsure how severe the sickness would be – and suggest that it might just be respiratory in nature, unlike other, more deadly rodent viruses.
In addition, Dr Lednicky said that there are already viruses that human’s can catch from mouse dung, and that it’s rare for people to get infected with these, mainly because most people aren’t contacting infected poo from these wild mice very often.
The cotton mouse is a type of mouse native to the swamps, forests, fields and dunes of the Southeastern United States.
It’s sometimes found in homes from Texas to Florida to Virginia, but more commonly, they live outdoors.
They looked to an example of another group of rodent viruses, which while fatal in 36 percent of cases, only affects about 30 Americans per year, called hanta viruses.
These bugs cause nausea, cramping and fever. In July four four Americans died from of hantaviruses.
Luckily, Pepper, the shorthaired black cat who started the study, showed no signs of sickness after snagging the infected rodent.
