(CNN) — A Lassa fever diagnosis has actually been confirmed when it come to a patient at Emory University Hospital, a CDC spokesman told CNN about Sunday.
Test outcomes when it come to the patient “were beneficial when it come to Lassa fever,” Facilities when it come to Health problem Regulate and Prevention spokesman Benjamin Hayes said.
Doctors owned suspected the patient, an American physician’s assistant who’d been functioning along with a missionary company in Togo, owned the virus. At the request of the U.S. Say Department, the personal was transported from West Africa to the Atlanta hospital when it come to treatment.
The patient is being treated at the university’s Major Communicable Diseases Unit, where 4 U.S. patients were treated when it come to Ebola in 2014.
“We are continuing to manage the patient when it come to symptoms of febrile illness,” Emory spokeswoman Holly Korschun said.
What is Lassa fever?
Lassa fever is a virus spread by rats that is endemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Brand-new Guinea and Nigeria, according to the CDC.
Symptoms can easily be much like Ebola, featuring hemorrhagic fever and bleeding, even though 80% of patients endure mild symptoms and can easily also go undiagnosed, according to the Globe Healthiness Organization.
Lassa fever is deadly in concerning 1% of every one of individuals. Amongst those that require hospitalization when it come to their illness, 15% do not survive.
Unlike Ebola, Lassa fever is not spread from individual to person. People come to be infected from contact along with urine or feces of an infected rat, which at times happens from food. Breathing particles in the air from infected rat feces can easily additionally cause infection. Coming in to direct contact along with physical fluids from an infected individual can easily additionally cause infection, even though this is rare.
Symptoms start one to 3 weeks after a individual is infected.
The virus can easily be treated along with the antiviral drug Ribavirin.
Lassa fever infects an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 People in West Africa per year and is answerable when it come to 5,000 deaths.
There have actually just been 6 instances of Lassa fever in the Combined States, according to the CDC. every one of were infected while taking a trip to nations where the virus was spreading.
The the majority of recent situation joined Could 2015, as quickly as a man that owned returned from taking a trip to Liberia died from Lassa fever in a Brand-new Jersey hospital.
CNN’s Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.
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