Xinyang flavivirus is a novel tick-borne Orthoflavivirus
In this paper, we report the discovery of Xinyang flavivirus (XiFV), a novel virus isolated from Haemaphysalis flava ticks in China. Through phylogenetic analysis, we found that XiFV is closely related to other tick-only flaviviruses, such as Mpulungu flavivirus (MPFV) from Zambia and Ngoye virus (NGOV) from Senegal. This positions XiFV in a unique clade of orthoflaviviruses, a group that seems to infect only ticks, without any known vertebrate host