In screening for unknown viruses, species hits alone likely carry little weight. Thus, we used all sequences in the family Bunyaviridae for our analysis. A 168-bp fragment of the polymerase gene with the lowest E-value and high sequence identity was used as the sequence of the unknown virus. This virus sequence was detected in all 10 pooled samples, indicating that the virus is involved in FTLS. After detecting a possible novel bunyavirus through highthroughput Illumina sequencing, we inoculated Vero cell lines, which are known to be sensitive to phleboviruses, with sera from six positive patients and were subsequently able to detect the virus by RT-PCR [30, 31] . Although the CPE was modest, RT-PCR confirmed the infection. Genome sequencing was performed and a phylogenetic analysis of the genome sequence showed that this virus clustered into the Phlebovirus branch, but was divergent from other known phleboviruses. These results confirm the novelty of this virus within the Phlebovirus genus of the family Bunyaviridae [36] . Furthermore, virus size and propagation in cells were similar to that of the bunyaviruses.