A newly discovered tick-borne virus has infected hundreds of patients in the same Chinese province tied to the origins of COVID-19, and the tick carrying it is already crawling across the United States.
Story Snapshot
- Chinese researchers identified a new virus called ALTNV, tied to fever and flu-like illness, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
- Of 3,163 patients tested for fever after tick bites, 329 came back positive for the virus, a rate of over 10 percent.
- The virus was found in ticks across 15 Chinese provinces, including Hubei, home to Wuhan, where COVID-19 first surfaced.
- The Asian longhorned tick, the main carrier identified in the study, is already established in the United States.
- No U.S. public health agency has issued a statement on the discovery so far.
New Virus Traced To Same Chinese Province As COVID-19
Scientists in China identified a new virus they named Asian longhorned tick nairovirus, or ALTNV. It causes fever, fatigue, stomach problems, and abnormal blood test results in patients bitten by ticks. The study, led by researchers at the State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity in Beijing, ran in the New England Journal of Medicine. Reports note the virus turned up in Hubei province, the same region where COVID-19 first emerged in Wuhan.
Doctors began digging into these cases because something did not add up. Many patients showed symptoms of a known tick-borne illness called Dabie bandavirus, but their tests came back negative. That gap in the data led researchers to look closer and find an entirely new virus hiding in the same patient pool. Some patients were even found to have both viruses at once, which the study says appears to make the illness worse.
Hundreds Test Positive Across Four Provinces
Researchers screened 3,163 patients who developed fever after tick bites across four Chinese provinces. Of those, 329 tested positive for ALTNV, a positivity rate above 10 percent. That is not a fringe finding buried in a handful of odd cases. It is a large, structured screening effort that found the virus in roughly one out of every ten sick patients tested. Chinese scientists also detected the virus circulating in ticks across 15 provinces total.
The main carrier identified is the Asian longhorned tick, scientifically known as Haemaphysalis longicornis. This is not some obscure bug confined to rural China. It is an invasive species that has already spread widely on American soil, a fact confirmed by U.S. researchers tracking its rapid expansion across multiple states.
Invasive Tick Already Living In American Backyards
The Asian longhorned tick was first spotted in the United States in 2017 and has since spread to numerous states along the East Coast and beyond. Scientists studying its expansion describe it as an aggressive, fast-reproducing species capable of overwhelming livestock and wildlife. That means the exact tick tied to this new virus discovery is not some distant foreign threat. It is already here, feeding on American animals and, in some documented cases, biting people.
This is not the first time this species has been flagged as a public health concern in America. Agricultural researchers have been actively tracking the tick’s spread for years, warning that its rapid growth outpaces containment efforts. The new Chinese findings give American families one more reason to take tick checks seriously, especially with an invasive species already established from farm country to backyards.
Silence From Health Agencies Leaves Questions Unanswered
No American public health agency has issued a statement addressing the ALTNV discovery. That silence stands out given the tick’s confirmed presence on U.S. soil. Chinese researchers themselves acknowledge the science is still developing, since coinfection with other tick-borne pathogens complicates exactly how sick ALTNV alone makes a person. Still, the core discovery stands on solid ground: a real virus, found in real patients, tied to a real tick that Americans can encounter in their own yards.
Researchers in China have identified a previously unknown tick-borne orthonairovirus in patients who looked as if they had severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome but tested negative for Dabie bandavirus.
The letter in the New England Journal of Medicine names the virus… pic.twitter.com/1JdUBUczt7
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 8, 2026
Families should not need to wait on a foreign government’s health bureaucracy or a slow-moving American agency to start protecting themselves. Wearing long sleeves in tall grass, checking for ticks after time outdoors, and removing any attached tick quickly remain the simplest defenses against this and other tick-borne threats. Given the track record of transparency out of Chinese labs during COVID-19, Americans are wise to rely on their own vigilance first.
Sources:
insiderpaper.com, cidrap.umn.edu, wwwnc.cdc.gov, pdfs.semanticscholar.org, uaex.uada.edu, publichealthontario.ca, thailandmedical.news
