Lassa Fever
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, closely followed by the Zika epidemic in Latin America, exposed just how tragically unprepared the world is for new outbreaks - Tulip Mazumdar
image by: Mike Blyth
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Lassa fever: Coming to an airport near you
Out of all the scary diseases, none seem to make people horripillate quite as much as the viral hemorrhagic fevers: Ebola, Lassa, Marburg and the rest. That might be due to their still-murky origins, crossing over from the edges of the world of animals into the infringing habitats of men. It might be their uncomfortable classification in biosafety level 4, reserved for life-threatening infections that spread by fine exhaled aerosols and for which there is no vaccine and no treatment. (Four is the highest level. There is no 5.) Probably it is due in part to the enduring impact of the 15-year-old book The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, which in its early pages conducts…
Resources
Why Lassa, an Ebola-like fever, has exploded in Nigeria
Blame rats and climate change?
How Worried Should We Be About Lassa Fever?
Lassa fever can cause internal bleeding. Other symptoms include respiratory distress, vomiting, facial swelling, and back and abdominal pain. Dr. Tom Frieden, who heads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the virus is not nearly as deadly as Ebola. Ninety-nine percent of people with Lassa fever survive.
Ebola’s True Toll Is Still Untallied As Another Deadly Fever Looms
Lassa fever is one of the “prototypical neglected diseases,” said Donaldson. “We could have vaccines or other interventions, but these things don’t actually get made because there is not a perceived large market to make money,” he said. “Much could be potentially done with a little bit of resource.”
Scientists develop novel vaccine for Lassa fever and rabies
A novel vaccine designed to protect people from both Lassa fever and rabies showed promise in preclinical testing, according to new research published in Nature Communications.
Should You Worry About Catching Lassa Fever?
Outbreaks of Lassa (in addition to outbreaks of Ebola, MERS, SARS and Hanta) emphasizes the “need for integrated One Health approaches to model zoonoses more effectively in order to better inform disease control and prevention. Zoonoses remain a neglected group of diseases, under-prioritized in national and international health systems...
The Lassa Ward
The Lassa Ward is the memoir of a young man studying to become a physician, while trying to make his way through a land where a battle against one of the world's deadliest diseases matches a struggle for human rights and human decency.
Using Modelling to Disentangle the Relative Contributions of Zoonotic and Anthroponotic Transmission: The Case of Lassa Fever
This work explains the discrepancy between the sizes of reported LF outbreaks and a clinical perception that human-to-human transmission is low. Future assessment of risks of LF and infection control guidelines should take into account the potentially large impact of super-spreaders in human-to-human transmission. Our work highlights several neglected topics in LF research, the occurrence and nature of super-spreading events and aspects of social behavior in transmission and detection.
Vaccines for three deadly viruses fast-tracked
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, closely followed by the Zika epidemic in Latin America, exposed just how "tragically unprepared" the world is for new outbreaks.
Lassa fever: Coming to an airport near you
Out of all the scary diseases, none seem to make people horripillate quite as much as the viral hemorrhagic fevers: Ebola, Lassa, Marburg and the rest.
CDC
Lassa fever is endemic in parts of west Africa including Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria; however, other neighboring countries are also at risk, as the animal vector for Lassa virus, the "multimammate rat" (Mastomys natalensis) is distributed throughout the region.
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
Lassa fever is an acute viral illness, transmitted to humans by rodents. It occurs in West Africa. No cases of Lassa fever were reported in the EU/EEA in the recent years, according to the latest data in the Annual Epidemiological Report. Primary transmission can be prevented by avoiding contact with rodents, especially in regions where outbreaks occur.
WHO
Though first described in the 1950s, the virus causing Lassa disease was not identified until 1969. The virus is a single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the virus family Arenaviridae. About 80% of people who become infected with Lassa virus have no symptoms. 1 in 5 infections result in severe disease, where the virus affects several organs such as the liver, spleen and kidneys.
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