The Iowa resident is believed to have died of Lassa fever, a uncommon virus within the US that causes everlasting listening to loss in a single in three and miscarriage in 95 % of contaminated pregnant girls.
The affected person, who has not been publicly recognized, just lately traveled to West Africa, the place the virus originated and may be present in rats within the area, well being officers stated.
The contaminated particular person — who returned to the U.S. from West Africa earlier this month — was hospitalized in isolation on the College of Iowa Well being Care Medical Heart earlier than his demise.
On Monday, preliminary exams carried out by the Nebraska Laboratory Response Community revealed that the Iowa resident examined constructive for Lassa fever — which might mark simply the ninth recognized case of the viral sickness within the U.S. since 1969, the 12 months it was first documented in Lassa, Nigeria.
The U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention helps native well being officers establish shut contacts of the affected person after they begin exhibiting signs. The affected person didn’t present any signs whereas touring, so fellow vacationers weren’t screened as a result of the danger was “extraordinarily low,” CDC officers stated.
Anybody discovered to have been in shut contact with the deceased affected person can be monitored by well being officers for 21 days.
Signs of Lassa fever can embrace fever, fatigue, and headache in gentle circumstances, and bleeding, issue respiratory, vomiting, facial swelling, shock, and chest, again, and stomach ache in additional extreme circumstances, in response to the CDC.
Lassa fever could cause everlasting listening to loss and deafness in sufferers with each gentle and extreme circumstances. About 1 in 3 circumstances expertise various levels of listening to loss, in response to the CDC.
In the meantime, pregnant girls are at critical threat if contaminated, with 95% dropping their being pregnant and fetus.
Lhasa fever-infected canine normally start to expertise signs inside one to 3 weeks of contracting the viral illness.
The illness can’t be unfold earlier than an contaminated individual is symptomatic or by means of informal contact equivalent to a hug or handshake.
Though the virus is unfold principally by rodents — particularly West African rats with many mammals and their feces and urine — it may be unfold by means of contact with the bodily fluids of an contaminated particular person, in response to the CDC.
Investigators imagine the Iowa affected person was involved with West African rats, in response to preliminary data.
West Africa sees about 100,000 to 300,000 circumstances of Lassa fever annually, with a mean of 5,000 deaths.
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