Catch the latest news reports on The Big Story, The Straits Times' weekday online news programme.

A new virus, which can be transmitted to humans from animals, has infected 35 people in Shandong and Henan provinces, according to a study by scientists from China, Singapore and Australia published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

So far, there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

The Henipavirus (also called Langya henipavirus or LayV) was first detected in late 2018 but was formally identified by scientists only last week, The Guardian reported.

Dr Zhu Feng, a research fellow from the Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme at Duke-NUS Medical School, weighs in on this study.

Separately, a Singaporean accused of smothering his wife to death with a pillow changed his plea to guilty on the fifth day of his murder trial, in a court session in Britain that was over in less than half an hour.

After deliberation with his attorneys on Tuesday morning (Aug 9), Fong Soong Hert, 51, admitted to killing Madam Pek Ying Ling, his wife of 28 years, last year.