A resident of Iowa has been confirmed dead from a suspected rare case of Lassa fever after returning from a West African country. It was noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have started investigations into the incident. Some health officials have stated that it has been rare for the disease to be seen in the US in the past few years.
The CDC noted that the patient had returned from one country in West Africa but was not sick during the time of travel, which brings the possibility of transmission by air to be low. The virus is not spread by casual contact, and patients are not believed to be infectious before symptoms occur.
It was learnt that the patient before the death was announced, was to hospital and admitted in isolation at the University of Iowa Health Care Medical Center and was tested by the Nebraska Laboratory Response Network early Monday. According to the officials, the results from the tests carried out showed that the patient was suspected to be infected with Lassa Fever. The officials further noted that if the suspect case is confirmed, the case detected now will be the ninth known case of Lassa fever since 1969 in travellers returning to the U.S. from areas where the disease is found.
The CDC is assisting Iowa health officials in identifying people who had contact with the patient after symptoms began. Symptoms are typically mild and include fever, fatigue, and headache. Some people may develop vomiting, difficulty breathing, facial swelling, and pain in the back, chest, or stomach.
The officials discussed that the individual identified as close contacts will be monitored for 21 days.
The officials noted that the state and local health officials have started work to discover the circumstances that led to the death of the patient, who they did not identify, became infected.
The preliminary findings disclosed and suggested that the patient had contact with rodents in West Africa. Rodents carry the virus and spread it to humans through contact with urine or faeces droppings of infected animals. In rare cases, it can be transmitted among people through direct contact with a sick person’s blood or bodily fluids, through mucous membranes, or through sexual contact.
According to official reports, it was noted that about 100,000 to 300,000 cases of Lassa fever and about 5,000 deaths occur in West Africa each year, which shows how devastating the disease has been in the past years in the continent.
