Chinese Researchers Identify New Tick-Borne Virus as US States Report Bourbon and Heartland Cases

Researchers at the State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity in Beijing have identified a previously unknown tick-borne virus, publishing their findings this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, according to CIDRAP (the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota).

The virus, named Asian longhorned tick nairovirus (ALTNV), turned up while scientists tried to figure out why roughly 30% of patients showing symptoms of Dabie bandavirus (DBV) — a tick-borne hemorrhagic fever endemic to parts of Asia — kept testing negative for it, CIDRAP reported. Chinese researchers had been tracking these unexplained cases since 2009.

What the numbers actually show

Out of 3,163 patients tested after tick bites, 10.4% came back positive for ALTNV, according to CIDRAP. Among patients who tested negative for DBV specifically, that jumped to 15.1%.

On its own, ALTNV caused fatigue in 84% of infected patients, gastrointestinal symptoms in 80%, low platelet counts (thrombocytopenia) in 38%, and elevated liver enzymes in 36%, per CIDRAP's breakdown of the study. Critically, patients infected with ALTNV alone all recovered.

The dangerous cases involved coinfection. Thirty-eight patients had both ALTNV and DBV at once. That group saw higher rates of respiratory symptoms (61% versus 38% for DBV alone) and kidney impairment (84% versus 66%). Seven of those coinfected patients — 18.4% — died.

Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Stony Brook Children's Hospital in New York, told Fox News Digital that DBV-associated thrombocytopenia alone carries roughly a 30% mortality rate, which is why researchers kept digging when blood samples came back negative for DBV but patients were still clearly sick. "We're getting smarter at identifying those viruses," Nachman said. "When one blood sample is negative, it's important to say, 'Maybe there was a new virus there, and let's look for it.'"

On the tick side, CIDRAP reported that researchers found ALTNV RNA in 1.3% of 47,428 ticks sampled across 15 Chinese provinces, with the highest infection rate — 1.8% — in Haemaphysalis longicornis, the Asian longhorned tick. Lab experiments confirmed that species can transmit the virus to mice.

A version of this story ran nearly identically across Fox News, WFMD, and 10bmnews.com, all drawing on the same Fox News Digital reporting and the same Nachman quotes. CIDRAP's account adds the tick-prevalence data and mouse-transmission detail that the Fox-sourced pieces leave out.

No vaccine, no cure, for this one or several others

Nachman was blunt about treatment options: "Effective antivirals exist for flu, but not for many tick-borne viruses, including the newly identified one." Supportive care — fluids, symptom management — is the only option right now for ALTNV, same as most tick-borne viral illnesses.

That gap isn't unique to China. In the US, Bourbon virus — carried by the Lone Star tick — also has no vaccine, no approved medication, and no commercially available test, according to reporting from northeastexplorer. Two Suffolk County, New York, residents tested positive for Bourbon virus earlier this year, with one hospitalized, in findings led by Dr. Luis Marcos, director of the Tick-borne Disease Clinic at Stony Brook University's Renaissance School of Medicine.

"There are a lot of lone star ticks in New York and in the Northeast, we have dense populations, and when someone is infected with Bourbon virus symptoms they are similar to other tick-borne infections," Marcos said, adding that he believes Bourbon virus cases are likely going undiagnosed in the region.

Nebraska is dealing with its own tick-borne virus findings. The state's Department of Health and Human Services announced this week that it detected both Heartland virus and Bourbon virus in tick pools collected in Sarpy County during the 2026 surveillance season, according to the Lincoln Journal Star and the Kearney Hub. Heartland virus was also found in Richardson County last year. No human cases have been reported in Nebraska from either virus, HHS said.

A fair caveat and what's still unknown

It's reasonable to be skeptical of "new deadly virus" headlines out of China, given the country's history of slow disclosure on pathogen outbreaks. The NEJM publication here is a peer-reviewed study, not a government press release. The data itself draws a clear line: ALTNV by itself did not kill anyone in this cohort. The fatalities were tied to coinfection with DBV, a distinction the WFMD and 10bmnews versions of the story explicitly note but the original Fox News Digital headline does not make obvious.

What's genuinely unresolved is whether ALTNV or a related orthonairovirus exists in North American tick populations. None of the available reporting says anyone has looked. With Bourbon and Heartland virus turning up in new US states this year, and no domestic testing regime built specifically to screen for ALTNV, that question sits with state health departments and the CDC to answer, not with a single study out of Beijing.