Iowa resident dies from Lassa fever, Ebola virus, CDC says

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 through the feces of an infected rodent found in West Africa. The middle-aged Iowa resident had returned from a trip through that region in early October, Iowa public health officials said in a press release.

The CDC is conducting final laboratory tests 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, isolated from other patients. Lassa fever has similar symptoms to the Ebola virus and causes hemorrhagic fever. However, experts say the disease is much less likely to be fatal than Ebola.

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

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

Lassa fever usually spreads through the urine or feces of infected rodents. The West African many-nipped 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. said CDC. People can spread it through blood or body fluids if they have active symptoms.

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

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

Before this case, eight others in the U.S. were diagnosed with 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 about 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 mortality rate of Lassa fever is much lower than that of Ebola or Marburg virus, another hemorrhagic fever with a high mortality ratesaid dr. David Hamer, professor of global health and medicine at Boston University. In the U.S., it is unlikely that rats would contract Lassa fever or transmit it to humans, he said.

In rural West Africa, rats typically spread the disease when they are near human food sources. People can then inhale the virus or come into contact with it through 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 health care providers who care for patients with the virus. Infections are also thought to occur via sexual transmission via the exchange of bodily fluids.

Human transmission, Hamer said, “makes it concerning for possible introduction and spread in the United States.However, he noted: ‘This is the ninth case since the 1960s. So it was a rare event.”

The last case of Lassa fever brought to the US was in 2016 federal files. Then, a 33-year-old nurse from Georgia 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 became infected after working in Liberia and coming into contact with rodents and their waste.

Following Monday’s deaths, officials identified four Americans who died of Lassa fever, out of nine recorded cases of the disease.

What are the symptoms of Lassa fever?

According to African health officials, Lassa’s signs and symptoms are usually gradual. 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, coughing and abdominal pain, according to the African agency that oversees disease control. People with severe cases sometimes experience swelling of the face, 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 hearing returns in most of these patients 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 US occurred in 1969. The viral disease takes its name from the Nigerian city where two missionary nurses died from itThis is reported by the British Health Security Agency.

Infections usually occur in the dry season, between December and April, following the wet season reproductive cycle of the polytamous rat, the World Health Organisation said.