Sabiá virus has been circulating in Brazil for 142 years and mutating, study finds

Researchers at a FAPESP-supported center developed a new method and identified the infection in two patients who died from acute hemorrhagic and neurological syndrome in São Paulo in 2019 and 2020

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

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Map of municipalities in the state of São Paulo indicating locations where natural Sabiá virus (SABV) infections were detected. Case 1 (1990) occurred in Cotia, and Case 2 (1999) occurred in Espírito Santo do Pinhal. Cases 3 and 4 are from 2019 and 2020 and are from patients in Sorocaba and Assis. Taken together, the data indicate the silent circulation and genetic diversity of SABV over time 

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Credit: Ingra M. Claro/FM-USP

The Sabiá virus causes an acute hemorrhagic and neurological syndrome. Four fatal cases have been recorded in the state of São Paulo since 1990. The virus has been circulating in Brazil for about 142 years. Genomic analyses of two cases recorded in 2019 and 2020 show that the virus has undergone genetic changes over time, which explains why it was not identified by existing tests.

These results are part of a study published in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The study was conducted by researchers from the Brazil-UK Joint Center for Arbovirus Discovery, Diagnostics, Genomics, and Epidemiology (CADDE), a research center supported by FAPESP and based at the University of São Paulo Medical School (FM-USP) and Imperial College London in the United Kingdom.

“The reference strain of the Sabiá virus dates back to 1990, from a case in Cotia. The diagnostic method was developed based on that genome. Since more than 30 years have passed, it was very likely that the virus had mutated. We don’t have enough cases to validate this method further, but it can be used for future suspected cases with greater accuracy than the tests used until now,” says Ingra Morales Claro, who conducted the research during her Ph.D. studies with a FAPESP scholarship at FM-USP and is currently pursuing postdoctoral research at the University of Kentucky in the United States.

The team developed primers – small DNA fragments used to detect the virus in laboratory tests – and sent them to the Adolpho Lutz Institute in São Paulo, the state’s leading facility for this type of testing.

The genomes recovered from Sabiá were approximately 89% genetically identical to strains previously described in 1999, when the second case in history was recorded. “When analyzing the genomes of the new cases, we identified mutations in target regions of the primers that prevented detection by existing diagnostic tests. We modified those regions, and now it’s possible to identify the circulating strains,” Claro explains.

The CADDE is coordinated in Brazil by Ester Sabino, a professor at FM-USP who led the first sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 in the country in March 2020, as well as the mpox virus in 2022 (read more at agencia.fapesp.br/32656/, agencia.fapesp.br/35414/, and agencia.fapesp.br/38928). In the United Kingdom, the center is coordinated by Nuno Faria of Imperial College London.

His team led the ZiBRA project which sequenced the Zika virus and mapped the yellow fever outbreak in Brazil and São Paulo. Together with Sabino, his team also coordinated the initial characterization of the SARS-CoV-2 Gamma variant in Manaus (read more at revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/en/breaking-boundaries/ and agencia.fapesp.br/35449).  

How the virus interacts with human cells

The 2020 case of Sabiá virus infection was identified through metagenomic analysis, a technique that detects different microorganisms in a sample without knowing which virus to look for in advance. The virus was present in the blood of a 52-year-old patient from Sorocaba. A rapid metagenomic approach developed during Claro’s doctoral studies was used to detect emerging pathogens in clinical samples.

The man, who had a history of hiking in forested areas, sought care at a primary care clinic on December 30, 2019. He was then transferred to FM-USP’s general and teaching hospital (Hospital das Clínicas) in São Paulo with a suspected case of yellow fever and died on January 11, 2020. Initial tests were negative for yellow fever and Sabiá virus.

After detecting the virus in subsequent tests, the researchers analyzed blood samples from seven previous cases of acute hemorrhagic and neurological syndrome that had tested negative for yellow fever. They found a case involving a 63-year-old rural worker from Assis who was admitted to the Hospital das Clínicas on December 10, 2019, and died two days later.

In both cases, the researchers observed changes in the protein that allow the virus to bind to human cells. Phylogenetic analyses, which allow for the reconstruction of the evolutionary history of a virus, indicated that the pathogen has been circulating in Brazil for decades and is likely not a recent introduction.

“There were likely other cases in the past that went unidentified. It’s important to understand the virus, develop tests, and study the changes occurring in its genome so that we can anticipate future cases, and even outbreaks, of the disease,” Sabino warns.

The species that serves as a reservoir for the virus is not yet known, but it is believed to be wild rodents. The infections occurred in rural areas where wild animals and humans may interact.

“In this context, metagenomic approaches have proven to be essential tools for detecting rare or unexpected pathogens, especially when targeted diagnostic tests fail. This strategy was fundamental in identifying both fatal cases of Sabiá in humans and in wild animals, and it highlights the essential role of genomic surveillance in detecting public health risks,” says Faria, citing as an example a recent study by the group on the evolution and transmission dynamics of yellow fever in Brazil.

The Sabiá virus is considered one of the Brazilian viruses with the highest risk of aerosol transmission in a laboratory setting. Handling it requires the highest level of biosafety, a capability that does not yet exist in South America. 

The country’s first laboratory capable of storing and handling the active virus, Orion, is scheduled to open in 2030. It is currently under construction at the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) in Campinas. Currently, the Sabiá reference strain is stored in the United States (read more at agencia.fapesp.br/52207). 

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)
The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

 

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Journal

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

DOI

10.1371/journal.pntd.0014008 

Article Title

Genomic characterization of Sabiá virus in Brazil, 2019–2020: Implications for diagnostics, virus evolution, and receptor binding

Extending health span through public health and longevity medicine

“Instead, healthy longevity will likely depend on the coordinated integration of multiple intervention layers operating at different stages of the disease trajectory.”

Impact Journals LLC

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Figure 1. Healthy longevity requires coordinated interventions acting across the life course rather than isolated disease-centered approaches.

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Credit: Copyright: © 2026 Mierau and Demaria. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

BUFFALO, NY — May 20, 2026 — A new editorial was published in Volume 18 of Aging-US on May 18, 2026, titled “Public health in the age of longevity interventions: from prevention to system-wide resilience.”

The editorial was authored by first author Jochen Mierau from the University of Groningen and corresponding author and Aging-US Editor-in-Chief Marco Demaria from the University of Groningen and the European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing (ERIBA). In this editorial, the authors examine how modern public health systems may need to evolve as aging populations increasingly face chronic disease, frailty, multimorbidity, and progressive loss of function rather than the acute infectious diseases that shaped 20th-century medicine.

The authors argue that many of the greatest gains in human lifespan historically came not from advanced medical technologies, but from broad public health interventions such as sanitation, vaccination, improved nutrition, occupational safety, safer housing, and access to education. While these measures remain essential, they suggest that modern aging societies now face a different challenge: extending healthspan alongside lifespan.

The editorial highlights how today’s health risks accumulate gradually across the life course through environmental, metabolic, social, and behavioral exposures. Ultra-processed foods, pollution, tobacco, alcohol, sedentary lifestyles, climate-related stressors, and social isolation are described as contributors to accelerated biological aging and increased vulnerability to chronic disease. The authors emphasize that these interconnected exposures cannot be fully addressed through disease-specific treatment alone.

“Rather than representing separate or competing domains, these approaches should be viewed as complementary components of a unified strategy to improve population health across aging societies.”

A major focus of the article is the growing scientific interest in longevity-directed interventions that target core biological mechanisms of aging. The authors discuss pathways including cellular senescence, chronic inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, and impaired proteostasis, noting that interventions directed at these processes may help delay or modify multiple age-related diseases simultaneously rather than treating each condition individually after it emerges.

Importantly, the editorial emphasizes that longevity interventions should not replace either public health or conventional clinical medicine. Instead, the authors propose a coordinated framework operating across the life course. In this model, public health strategies reduce baseline risk and environmental damage, clinical medicine treats established disease, and longevity-focused therapies may help slow biological decline before major pathology becomes clinically apparent. Figure 1 of the paper (page 2) illustrates this proposed multi-layered framework integrating public health, longevity interventions, and disease-specific care across different stages of life.

The paper also discusses major implementation challenges, including the need for reliable biomarkers of biological aging, equitable access to therapies, regulatory clarity, and healthcare systems capable of supporting prevention-focused longevity strategies. The editorial further argues that outcomes such as physical function, resilience, cognitive capacity, independence, and quality of life may become increasingly important metrics in aging populations, complementing traditional endpoints such as mortality and disease incidence. The authors suggest that prevention-first systems focused on long-term resilience may ultimately provide greater societal benefit than approaches centered primarily on late-stage disease management.

Overall, this editorial presents a broader vision for how public health and longevity science may converge in aging societies. By integrating preventive public health measures, coordinated clinical care, and emerging interventions targeting biological aging processes, the authors propose a framework aimed at improving not only lifespan, but long-term healthspan, resilience, and functional independence across the population.

Paper DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206381              

Corresponding author: Marco Demaria – m.demaria@umcg.nl

Paper preview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSjfmxpHer8

Keywords: aging, healthy longevity, biological aging, public health, cellular senescence, healthspan

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Journal

Aging-US

DOI

10.18632/aging.206381 

Method of Research

Commentary/editorial

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Public health in the age of longevity interventions: from prevention to system-wide resilience

Article Publication Date

18-May-2026

 

Company location, rather than growth, may lead to higher investment returns

Penn State

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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Investors looking for higher returns may want to focus on a company’s location instead of its growth potential, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State. They found that portfolios built to consider company headquarter location and the housing market together could produce returns three times higher than portfolios focused on growth stocks alone.

The analysis, published in the Journal of Empirical Finance, incorporated real estate data to solve a longstanding finance puzzle of why value stocks — typically representing mature, stable companies in sectors such as manufacturing and healthcare — appear to consistently outperform more exciting, growing businesses such as technology companies. The researchers found that companies in more expensive areas like Silicon Valley and New York have higher labor and infrastructure costs, meaning more money is spent running the business instead of returned to investors. The researchers said the findings suggest that not only could investors consider regional housing trends when building their portfolios, but firms could factor in how location influences stock performance.

“Where firms locate their headquarters matters,” said co-corresponding author Timothy T. Simin, professor of finance at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business. “We found that there’s a real practical implication for investors — where companies are located plays a role in their portfolio return.”

The researchers assessed 9,308 companies across three stock market exchanges in the United States from 2000 to 2019, the last year for which complete data was available. They sorted the companies’ stocks based on their book-to-market equity values — a measure of a firm’s assets minus liabilities, divided by the firm’s share price multiplied by how many shares they have outstanding. If this ratio reveals that the assets are worth more than the share price, the company is considered a “value stock.” If the stock market prices are higher than the assets, the firm is labeled a “growth stock.”

“There’s a puzzle known as the ‘value-growth premium,’ which refers to how value stocks consistently outperform growth stocks,” said co-corresponding author Brent W. Ambrose, professor of real estate and director of the Borrelli Institute for Real Estate Studies at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business. “In the scientific literature, it appears that value stocks overperform in the market and growth firms are underperforming. We’re proposing a new model explanation that people haven’t really thought about before.”

There is no finance or real estate model that can explain the value-growth premium phenomenon, according to Ambrose. So, the team brought both finance and real estate models together, along with urban economics — an approach that combines geography with economic theory. After sorting firms as value or growth stocks, the researchers categorized them based on whether their headquarters location was in a less or more expensive region of the country according to the house price index, which tracks how residential housing prices change over time.

“In regions with more expensive housing markets, growth firms have the worst return,” Simin said, explaining that this is likely because companies put more money into their own physical infrastructure and into their labor force, since they live in higher cost-of-living areas. “That doesn’t mean companies shouldn’t have their headquarters in those locations — there are a lot of benefits, such as proximity to other high-tech firms among others — but companies should factor this understanding in so that they know it means there will be less return available for their investors.”

Ambrose noted that the findings could also serve as a prescription for local governments interested in attracting firms or growing firms already in their area.

“Housing is an expense that firms have to account for: It shows up in their labor costs,” Ambrose said. “If a community is trying to encourage more firms to locate in their community, they can work to make sure housing is affordable.”

In addition to Ambrose and Simin, Yifan Chen served as co-corresponding author. Chen earned a doctorate in real estate and finance from Penn State in 2022 and is now an assistant professor of finance and real estate at Shidler College of Business at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

The researchers also expressed gratitude for the alumni support for the Borrelli Institute for Real Estate Studies at Penn State, which helped the team procure the data used in this study.

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Journal

Journal of Empirical Finance

DOI

10.1016/j.jempfin.2026.101690 

Article Title

Firm location and the value-growth premium

Article Publication Date

1-Jun-2026

 

Climate warming: a paleoclimatic perspective

New research shows, for the first time, an unprecedented and significant warming of equatorial Atlantic upper intermediate waters during the mid- to late Holocene

Geological Society of America

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Boulder, Colo., USA: Against the backdrop of a rapidly warming climate, the need to better understand the mechanisms governing excess heat uptake and transfer into the deep ocean has become critically important. Between 1970 and 2020, approximately 89% of the excess heat arising from the accelerated increase in greenhouse gas emissions was absorbed by the oceans. Instrumental records and climate simulations indicate that subtropical and extratropical wind-driven ocean circulation plays a critical role in the uptake and transfer of excess heat into the ocean interior. However, evaluating the statistical significance of these observations is hindered by the short duration of instrumental records and the influence of natural climate variability.

 

Paleoclimatology, the study of ancient climate, provides an important perspective for understanding long-term climate response and ocean dynamics that cannot be gleaned from short term observations. Using a marine sediment sequence from the equatorial Atlantic, Syee Weldeab of the University of California Santa Barbara reconstructed the temperature history of intermediate waters at a depth of 800 m over the last 11,000 years. The temperature record reveals a previously unrecognized, abrupt 5°C warming that began approximately 5,700 years ago and reached a peak warming 2,500 years ago. Remarkably, this outstanding warming at 800 m depth is not mirrored by changes in the overlying tropical sea surface temperatures, indicating an extratropical origin of the warming.  

 

The timing of the subsurface warming coincides with major ocean–atmosphere circulation changes in the Southern Hemisphere. These changes were likely driven by increased solar insolation during the austral summer and include a poleward shift and intensification of the Southern Hemisphere Westerly Winds. 

 

One important physical consequence of this wind strengthening is enhanced subduction of relatively warm surface waters equatorward of the zone of maximum wind stress, allowing these waters to descend into subsurface depths and propagate toward the tropical ocean interior. Weldeab proposes that the pronounced warming observed in the equatorial Atlantic intermediate waters is linked to these Southern Hemisphere ocean–atmosphere circulation changes, highlighting a mechanism by which high-latitude climate forcing can influence tropical subsurface ocean temperatures on centennial-to-millennial time scales.

 

The amount and persistence of equatorial warming at intermediate depth indicate a robust heat-transfer mechanism and underscore the capacity of the ocean to absorb and store large amounts of heat. The findings of this study provide an important paleoclimatic perspective on ongoing global warming, as the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds continue to shift poleward and strengthen, with important implications for future ocean heat uptake and interior-ocean warming.

 

CITATION: Weldeab, S., 2026, Large mid to late Holocene warming of equatorial Atlantic intermediate waters: The role of the southern branch of the Meridional Overturning Circulation: Geology, v. 54, no. 6, p. 733–736, https://doi.org/10.1130/G54520.1

About the Geological Society of America

The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a global professional society with more than 18,000 members across over 100 countries. As a leading voice for the geosciences, GSA advances the understanding of Earth's dynamic processes and fosters collaboration among scientists, educators, and policymakers. GSA publishes Geology, the top-ranked “geology” journal, along with a diverse portfolio of scholarly journals, books, and conference proceedings—several of which rank among Amazon’s top 100 best-selling geology titles.

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Journal

Geology

DOI

10.1130/G54520.1 

Article Title

Large mid- to late Holocene warming of equatorial Atlantic intermediate waters: The role of the southern branch of the Meridional Overturning Circulation

Article Publication Date

8-May-2026

 

Nearly 60% of college students with a psychosis diagnosis are not receiving the recommended mental health treatment

Although the majority of college students sought and received therapy or counseling in the past 12 months, less than 40 percent received the recommended combination of therapy/counseling and antipsychotic medication.

Boston University School of Public Health

 

Despite a low overall prevalence of psychosis in the United States, affecting three percent of the population, this condition is a serious public health concern because people often delay seeking care for an average of 74 weeks from the time symptoms begin. As psychosis tends to emerge in early adulthood, it’s important to understand the reasons why young adults who experience psychosis seek—or do not seek—mental health treatment. 

A new study led by a Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researcher examined the perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes that influenced college students’ with a diagnosis of psychosis to seek help for their mental health and found that while a majority of these students believed they needed mental health treatment, 60 percent of students did not meet current recommended guidelines for combined antipsychotic medication and therapy. 

Published in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, the study found that nearly 8 in 10 surveyed college students with psychosis reported needing mental health support. While 8 in 10 students did seek therapy or counseling within the past 12 months, only 4 in 10 students reported taking antipsychotic medication. 

“This high identified need for help but low utilization of services indicates potential barriers to accessing this care,” says study lead and corresponding author Clara Godoy-Henderson, a PhD student in health services and policy research at BUSPH. “Early intervention and access to services such as therapy and medication in this population are important because it improves outcomes related to overall quality of life, school involvement, employment, symptom severity, and relapse rate.”

The study is among the largest to assess the use of antipsychotic medication, therapy/counseling, and informal support among college students with psychosis. As the average age of onset of psychosis is about 20 years old, understanding college students’ perceptions and behaviors around treating this condition can help identify opportunities for earlier interventions that could improve psychosis outcomes.

For the study, Godoy-Henderson and colleagues at BUSPH and the University of Minnesota analyzed national survey data from the Healthy Minds Study, the nation’s largest survey of student mental health, conducted by the Healthy Minds Network. The researchers examined responses from 2,819 college students with a diagnosis of psychosis, provided between 2015-2024, about their 12-month history with therapy/counseling and antipsychotic medication, as well as whether informal support from various groups around them (friends, loved ones, roommates, campus staff, religious counselors, or support groups) motivated them to seek or utilize these services.

Overall, the majority of students—nearly 60 percent—believed that they needed help for their psychosis condition. Students who did not believe they needed mental health help—or who believed that therapy/counseling and medication would not be helpful in treating their condition—were less likely to seek and receive these services. Still, the high identified need for help, but low utilization of antipsychotic medication, may indicate that students are encountering barriers to care, such as stigma—an issue that is also the focus of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Month, an awareness campaign held each May by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. 

The findings also suggested that college students who believed they needed mental health treatment were more likely to have received informal support from health professionals or friends, and were more likely to take antipsychotic medication and/or receive therapy/counseling if they were encouraged—versus being pressured or forced to seek help, as is often the case when patients can be institutionalized for their mental health.

"Support systems play a crucial role in identifying early psychosis symptoms and help navigate mental health services, which may be an important factor in treatment initiation,” says Godoy-Henderson. “However, future research should examine the long-term outcomes of individuals who are encouraged by their support systems to seek help for their mental health versus being mandated to treatment.”

Future research should also aim “to better understand the barriers to antipsychotic medication to improve poor outcomes, such as delayed care, and high relapse rates in individuals with psychosis,” she says.

The study’s senior author is Dr. Sarah Lipson, associate professor of health law, policy & management at BUSPH and a principal investigator of the Healthy Minds Network.

** 

About Boston University School of Public Health 

Founded in 1976, Boston University School of Public Health is one of the top ten ranked schools of public health in the world. It offers master's- and doctoral-level education in public health. The faculty in six departments conduct policy-changing public health research around the world, with the mission of improving the health of populations—especially the disadvantaged, underserved, and vulnerable—locally and globally.

 

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Journal

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology

DOI

10.1007/s00127-026-03102-7#Sec13 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Mental health help-seeking by US college students with a diagnosis of psychosis