Severe Fever Thrombocytopenia Syndrome

Severe Fever Thrombocytopenia Syndrome

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging infectious disease recently discovered in northeast and central China. SFTS cause high fatality rate of 12% and as high as 30% in some areas. The major clinical symptoms of SFTS are fever, vomiting, diarrhea, multiple organ failure, thrombocytopenia (low platelet count), leucopenia (low white blood cell count), and elevated liver enzyme level.SFTS occurs in rural areas from March to November, and a majority of cases are from April to July. In 2009 Xue-jie Yu and colleagues isolated the SFTS virus (SFTSV) from SFTS patients’ blood. SFTSV is a Phlebovirus in the family of Bunyaviridae. The life cycle of the SFTSV most likely involves arthropod vectors and animal hosts. Humans are accidental hosts and play no role in the life cycle of the SFTSV. SFTSV has been detected from Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks. The transmission routine of SFTSV is unknown, but person-to-person transmission either plays no role or at least is not an important routine of transmission of SFTSV.