Vietnam may be home to new virus affecting nervous system

Patients in Vietnam and other locations with central nervous system infections may well be suffering from the effects of a newly discovered virus, according to a study to be published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. Researchers have detected the virus in spinal fluid from 4% of 642 patients with central nervous system infections of unknown cause, and in an average of 58% of fecal samples from pigs and poultry, suggesting animals may serve as reservoirs for transmission to humans. The virus, called CyCV-VN, belongs to the Cyclovirus genus, a group that has never before been implicated in human or animal disease. “The detection of CyCV-VN in a usually sterile material like cerebrospinal fluid is remarkable and may point to a pathogenic role of this virus as a single or a co-infecting pathogen,” says corresponding author Tan Le Van of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit...