{"id":16249,"date":"2026-04-08T12:01:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T08:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/?p=16249"},"modified":"2026-04-08T12:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T08:46:08","slug":"sea-animal-virus-spreads-to-humans-scientists-find-cause-of-mysterious-eye-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/sea-animal-virus-spreads-to-humans-scientists-find-cause-of-mysterious-eye-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Sea animal virus spreads to humans: Scientists find cause of mysterious eye disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-path-to-node=\"3\">A virus that was previously dangerous only to fish and crustaceans is now spreading to humans, causing severe, chronic eye disease. A study published in the journal <i data-path-to-node=\"3\" data-index-in-node=\"165\">Nature Microbiology<\/i> confirms that a pathogen prevalent in seafood is responsible for serious vision problems and a dangerous increase in intraocular pressure in humans.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"4\">Recently, medics in China were faced with an unusual medical puzzle. Patients exhibited acute eye inflammation and high internal pressure, yet traditional tests failed to detect any known virus.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"5\">Scientists focused their attention on <b data-path-to-node=\"5\" data-index-in-node=\"38\">Covert Mortality Nodavirus (CMNV)<\/b> \u2014 a pathogen that had previously only been discovered in fish and crustaceans. To confirm their suspicions, researchers examined the eye tissues of 70 patients using ultra-modern electron microscopy.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"6\">According to the study, the examination of damaged tissues revealed viral particles with a genetic code that is a <b data-path-to-node=\"6\" data-index-in-node=\"114\">98.96% match<\/b> to the virus found among marine life. This near-total identity clearly confirms that the disease is caused by a pathogen jumped from aquatic animals. This finding proves that the interspecies barrier has been breached, and an aquatic animal virus has become a new threat to the human body.<\/p>\n<h4 data-path-to-node=\"7\"><b data-path-to-node=\"7\" data-index-in-node=\"0\">How does the virus spread to humans?<\/b><\/h4>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"8\">A study of the patients&#8217; lifestyles showed that the threat comes directly from kitchens or commercial outlets. <b data-path-to-node=\"8\" data-index-in-node=\"111\">75% of those surveyed<\/b> were regularly in contact with raw seafood: they handled fish or shrimp without protective gloves and frequently consumed thermally unprocessed (raw) seafood.<\/p>\n<h4 data-path-to-node=\"9\"><b data-path-to-node=\"9\" data-index-in-node=\"0\">How real is the global threat?<\/b><\/h4>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"10\">This is the first scientific evidence that an aquatic animal virus can cause a specific eye disease in humans. Global monitoring conducted as part of the study showed that the CMNV virus has already been detected in <b data-path-to-node=\"10\" data-index-in-node=\"216\">49 species of marine creatures<\/b> (including crabs and mollusks) across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas, and even Antarctica.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"11\">Scientists warn that this is not just a regional problem. Adhering to hygiene standards and using gloves when processing seafood is becoming crucial to protecting oneself from this new threat.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"11\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41564-026-02266-x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nature<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A virus that was previously dangerous only to fish and crustaceans is now spreading to humans, causing severe, chronic eye disease. A study published in the journal Nature Microbiology confirms that a pathogen prevalent in seafood is responsible for serious vision problems and a dangerous increase in intraocular pressure in humans. Recently, medics in China [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1594,1665,1587,1657],"tags":[5091],"class_list":["post-16249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-public-health","category-research","category-science","tag-sea-animal-virus-spreads-to-humans"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16249"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16255,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16249\/revisions\/16255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medscriptum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}