The report that a man who traveled from Liberia to New Jersey had died on Monday from the viral illness Lassa fever is another sobering reminder that infectious diseases can hop continents and elude detection by health care workers who do not know a patient’s travel history.
Lassa, like Ebola, is a viral hemorrhagic fever. But Lassa is from a different family, and nowhere near as deadly or contagious as Ebola. Lassa does not spread easily from person to person, and health officials say there is little or no risk to the public.
Only a handful of Lassa cases have occurred in the United States, all in travelers from other countries. There has never been person-to-person transmission in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In West Africa, where Lassa is common, people usually catch it from rat droppings or urine. Person-to-person spread is rare and does not occur through casual contact, experts say; transmission requires direct contact with a sick person’s blood, bodily fluids or mucous membranes, or sexual contact.
About 100,000 to 300,000 cases of Lassa fever, and 5,000 deaths related to the illness, occur in West Africa each year.
The incubation period — the time it takes to get sick after being exposed to the virus — is one to three weeks. Most people, about 80 percent, have only a mild, flu-like illness with a slight fever, headache and fatigue. But some people become severely ill, with hemorrhaging (in gums, eyes, nose and other places), breathing trouble, vomiting, facial swelling, pain in the chest, back and abdomen, and shock. Some develop neurological problems, including hearing loss, tremors and encephalitis.
Overall, about 1 percent of people with Lassa die from it. In pregnant women, the disease often kills the fetus. Women themselves are particularly vulnerable in the third trimester of pregnancy, and have high death rates, according to the C.D.C.
Person-to-person transmission of Lassa is common in health care settings like some in West Africa, where proper personal protective equipment is lacking, the C.D.C says. The virus may be spread by contaminated medical equipment, such as reused needles.
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