Scientists have identified a new virus that has likely been transmitted from animals to dozens of people in China.

Langya henipavirus - or LayV - was first detected in late 2018 but only formally identified in early August.

Scientists from China, Singapore and Australia have written one letter about the virus, which was published in The New England Journal of Medicine last week.

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This is what they said about the virus.

What do we know about LayV?

LayV was detected during surveillance of hospital patients who had a fever and were recently exposed to animals in China’s east.

The surveillance was conducted from April 2018 to August 2021, with scientists so far recording 35 cases of the virus.

Of the 35 patients, 26 were infected with only LayV.

Of the 26 patients, most were farmers or factory workers. Sixteen were female and 10 were male.

The youngest patient was aged nine and the oldest was 84.

All 26 patients had a fever, with about half also experiencing other symptoms including fatigue, a cough and sore muscles.

About 30 per cent also had nausea, vomiting and headache.

No deaths have been reported from the virus.

Where did it come from?

As part of their research, scientists surveyed 25 types of wild animals to help determine where the virus came from.

They detected LayV predominantly in shrews - a small mole-like mammal.

Of the 262 shrews surveyed, the virus was found in 71 - or 27 per cent - of the animals.

“A finding that suggests that the shrew may be a natural reservoir of LayV,” the scientists said.

Some domestic dogs and goats were also found to be carrying the virus.

How concerned should you be

Scientists said there was little evidence to suggest the virus had spread through human-to-human contact.

“There was no close contact or common exposure history among the patients, which suggests that the infection in the human population may be sporadic,” they said.

“Contact tracing of nine patients with 15 close contact family members revealed no close-contact LayV transmission, but our sample size was too small to determine the status of human-to-human transmission for LayV.”

The scientists added further investigation should be undertaken to better understand the illness.