First Fatal Infection and Phylodynamic Analysis of Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus in Jilin Province, Northeastern China

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), caused by SFTS virus (SFTSV) in the genus Banyangvirus of the family Phenuiviridae, is an emerging tick-borne viral zoonosis (Liu et al. 2014). Typical clinical symptoms of SFTS include fever, headache, thrombocytopenia, and leukocytopenia (Yu et al. 2011). Since SFTSV was identified in 2009, it has been found in more than 20 provinces in China and is closely related to strains from Japan and South Korea (Kim et al. 2013; Takahashi et al. 2014). In Northeastern China, the disease was discovered in Liaoning Province in 2010 (Wang et al. 2016), and the virus was detected in Haemaphysalis longicornis in Jilin Province in 2013 (Liu et al. 2016). Here we describe the first fatal case of SFTS in Jilin Province and conduct phylodynamic analysis of SFTSV.