Emory University Hospital’s Severe Communicable Diseases Unit received a patient that could have actually Lassa fever about Saturday morning. The patient’s diagnosis is not yet confirmed. Emory will certainly job carefully along with the Facilities for Illness Manage and Prevention and along with the Georgia Department of People Healthiness in diagnosing the patient.
“Our patient arrived very early Saturday early morning and is being treated in the Severe Communicable Diseases Unit at Emory University Hospital for symptoms constant along with a fever-related illness,” said Vincent J. Dollard, Associate Vice President, Communications Dave W. Woodruff Healthiness Sciences at Emory University.
The patient, that as a result of confidentiality regulations can’t be identified, is an American medical professional assistant functioning for a missionary company in Togo, West Africa. Emory was contacted by the U.S. Say Department and asked to accept the patient in its SCDU, an isolation unit within the hospital in which 4 patients along with Ebola virus Illness were effectively treated in 2014.
Lassa is an acute viral infection that has actually been widespread in West Africa. Lassa fever is various from Ebola. Despite the fact that Lassa fever and Ebola can easily bring about comparable symptoms, Lassa fever is much less most likely compared to Ebola to spread from individual to individual and is much much less deadly. The death price from Lassa fever is about 10 to twenty percent in hospitalized patients, versus about 70 percent in Ebola virus Illness patients. While the 2 diseases are viral hemorrhagic fevers, bleeding and major symptoms are not common in situations of Lassa fever.
Additional factors to note regarding Lassa fever:
- Lassa fever has actually been endemic in Africa for several years, along with an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 people being infected per year.
- It is primarily spread via direct contact along with or the inhalation of droppings from “multimammate” rodents that carry the virus.
- The virus can easily be transmitted by infected humans, yet just via direct contact along with physical fluids. It can’t be transmitted via casual contact, and is not an airborne virus.
According to the CDC there have actually been just a couple of situations of Lassa fever mentioned in the United States, the current joining one patient in 2015 and one patient in 2010.
For much more guide about Lassa fever, head to the CDC website at: http://ift.tt/1nURMGF