Iowa resident dies of Lassa fever, virus to Ebola, CDC says

On By Littum

The person had recently returned from a trip to West Africa. Lassa fever is a viral disease similar to the Ebola virus.

An eastern Iowa resident died Monday from a viral illness similar to Ebola, likely contracted during a recent trip to West Africa.

The person is believed to be the ninth U.S. case of Lassa fever in more than half a century, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lassa fever is often transmitted via waste from an infected rodent found in West Africa. The middle-aged Iowa resident had returned from travel in that region in early October, Iowa public health officials said in a news release.

The CDC is doing the final lab test after the person had a presumptive positive result on Monday. The person died Monday afternoon while hospitalized at the University of Iowa Health Care Medical Center in isolation from other patients. Lassa fever has similar symptoms to the Ebola virus, which causes hemorrhagic fever. However, experts say it is far less likely to be fatal than Ebola.

State and federal officials have said the risk of infection is low. The person did not become ill during the trip, so the risk of the disease spreading to fellow passengers is “extremely low,” the CDC said.

“We are continuing to investigate and monitor this situation and are implementing the necessary public health protocols,” said Dr. Robert Kruse, state medical director of the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, in a statement.

Lassa fever is typically spread through the urine or feces of infected rodents. The West African multimammal rat is the only known carrier of the virus. These rats are found in sub-Saharan Africa and Lassa fever has been found in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria. CDC said. People can spread it through blood or body fluids when they have active symptoms.

In a news release, CDC officials said preliminary information indicates the patient may have had contact with rodents during a visit to West Africa. Officials, who declined to provide details about the person, are working to identify others who had contact with the person around the time symptoms began.

People in close contact with the infected person will be monitored for three weeks, the CDC said. The incubation period for the virus is between two and 21 days.

Before this case, eight others in the United States were identified as having Lassa fever after returning from the region where Lassa fever has been found, the CDC said. About 5,000 people die from the virus each year in West Africa, among the roughly 100,000 to 300,000 annual cases. African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Most people have mild symptoms or no signs of illness at all, and deaths are rare, experts say.

The death rate for Lassa fever is much lower than Ebola or Marburg virus, another hemorrhagic fever with a high death ratesaid Dr. David Hamer, professor of global health and medicine at Boston University. In the United States, rats are unlikely to contract Lassa fever or transmit it to humans, he said.

In rural West Africa, rats typically spread the disease when they are close to human food sources. People can then inhale or come into contact with the virus in rat urine or feces, or directly with infected rats.

After someone becomes ill, there is a risk of human spread, especially to family, friends and healthcare workers who tend to patients with the virus. Infections are also believed to occur through sexual transmission through the exchange of bodily fluids.

Human transmission, Hamer said, “makes it a concern for potential introduction and spread in the United States.But he noted: “This is the ninth case since the sixties. So it has been a rare occurrence.”

The last case of Lassa fever brought to the United States was in 2016, according to the federal records. Then a 33-year-old Georgia nurse contracted the disease after treating an infected patient in Togo. She eventually recovered. The last death from the virus was in 2015, when a 55-year-old New Jersey man was infected after working in Liberia and coming into contact with rodents and their waste.

After Monday’s deaths, officials have identified four Americans who have died of Lassa fever, out of nine recorded cases if the disease is here.

What are the symptoms of Lassa fever?

The signs and symptoms of Lassa are typically gradual, according to African health authorities. Infections are treated with the antiviral drug ribavirin.

Symptoms include fever, weakness and malaise, followed by headache, sore throat, muscle or chest pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cough and abdominal pain, according to the African agency that oversees disease control. People with severe cases sometimes experience facial swelling, fluid in the lungs, bleeding from the mouth, nose, genitals or gastrointestinal tract, and low blood pressure.

Deafness occurs in 25% of patients who survive the disease, but most of these patients’ hearing returns in the following months. Death usually occurs within two weeks of the onset of the disease, the African Disease Control Agency said.

The first documented cases of Lassa fever in the United States occurred in 1969. The viral disease takes its name from the Nigerian city where two missionary nurses died from itaccording to the UK Health Safety Agency.

Infections typically occur in the dry season, between December and April, after the reproductive cycle of the multima rat in the wet season, World Health Organization said.