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As of 16 Jun [2011], more than 280 cases of tick-borne disease have
been reported in central and east China's provinces of Henan, Hubei,
Shandong, Anhui and Jiangsu, according to the Chinese Center for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A dozen people have died from
the disease. 90 per cent of the cases occurred in people over 40 years
of age, and farmers accounted for 90 per cent of these cases.

The tick-borne disease, named by the center as
"fever-thrombocytopenia syndrome," is a new infectious disease caused by Bunia virus [Bunyavirus] found in central China regions. The CDC said that most of the victims have suffered from nausea, fatigue and a
lack of appetite.

In October of last year [2010], the Ministry of Health issued a guideline on the control and prevention of tick-borne diseases, asking local governments to report on possible cases through a nationwide disease control network.

[The etiological agent in these cases is severe fever with
thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) virus, a newly identified member of the genus phlebovirus in the Bunyaviridae family (see ProMED-mail archive no. 20110317.0853). The virus has been isolated from blood of 2 patients and from _Haemaphysalis_ ticks collected from dogs. Isolation of the virus from ticks does not prove their vector capacity, nor from dogs indicates that they are competent sources of infectious blood meals for arthropod vectors, but these findings do indicate that laboratory susceptibility and transmission experiments
are worth doing.