Chinese study finds new tick-borne virus ALTNV in 10.4% of 3,163 patients with fever
Beijing researchers tested 3,163 patients with fever after tick exposure. All 56 with ALTNV alone recovered; 7 of 38 patients coinfected with the SFTS virus died.
Researchers at the State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity in Beijing identified a previously unknown tick-borne virus in 10.4 percent of 3,163 patients they tested, Earth.com reports. The virus, named Asian longhorned tick nairovirus (ALTNV), was also found in ticks collected in 15 Chinese provinces. The first author is Xiao-Ai Zhang. The letter, "A Zoonotic Orthonairovirus from Febrile Patients in China", was reported in September 2026 in the New England Journal of Medicine earth.com
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ALTNV in patients: symptoms and coinfection
The starting point was a diagnostic gap: more than 30 percent of patients clinically diagnosed with severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) test negative for Dabie bandavirus (DBV), the cause of the disease. The team screened patients with fever and a history of tick exposure for ALTNV genetic material or IgM antibodies. Among patients who tested negative for DBV, 15.1 percent were positive for ALTNV.
ALTNV belongs to the genus Orthonairovirus in the family Nairoviridae. Its proteins share less than 80 percent of their amino acids with other species of the genus.
The authors described 56 patients with ALTNV alone. Fatigue affected 84 percent of them and gastrointestinal symptoms 80 percent. Thrombocytopenia was found in 38 percent, and raised aminotransferase levels in 36 percent. All of these patients recovered without lasting effects earth.com
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Among 38 patients infected with both ALTNV and DBV, the illness was more severe. Respiratory symptoms affected 61 percent, compared with 38 percent of patients with DBV alone. Kidney impairment affected 84 percent, compared with 66 percent. Seven of the coinfected patients, or 18.4 percent, died.
Ticks and spread in the United States
The team also tested 47,428 ticks from 15 provinces. ALTNV genetic material was found in 1.29 percent of them. The Asian longhorned tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis, carried it most often, at 1.75 percent, and in laboratory experiments passed the virus to mice.
The two viruses circulate in the same areas and share a tick vector, so the authors call for better tests to tell them apart where SFTS is common earth.com
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This tick species has spread across parts of the United States. By October 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had documented it in 21 states, with Kansas the most recent. According to the USDA's APHIS, these ticks are not competent vectors of the bacterium behind Lyme disease. In cattle, the species can transmit the parasite Theileria orientalis Ikeda. In 2019, a longhorned tick in Virginia was found infected with Bourbon virus.
The Chinese study tested only patients and ticks in China, so it does not show whether ALTNV is present in U.S. ticks.
