Guinea reports Lassa fever case
Health workers attend to a suspected lassa fever patient in West Africa. PHOTO/COURTESY
What you need to know:
- Lassa fever belongs to the same family as the Ebola and Marburg viruses but is much less deadly.
A case of Lassa fever, an acute viral haemorrhagic illness, has been recorded in the south of Guinea, the health authorities announced.
The virus was found in a 17-year-old girl from Kassadou, in the Gueckedou area where an epidemic has been declared, the health ministry said late Friday, calling her condition "satisfactory".
A local laboratory identified the virus on April 20 and a second test in Conakry confirmed it, the ministry added.
Trace and contact efforts were underway in surrounding villages, but no other cases have so far been found.
Lassa fever belongs to the same family as the Ebola and Marburg viruses but is much less deadly.
It is endemic in a number of West African countries and spread by contact with rat faeces or urine or the bodily fluids of an infected person.
Most of those infected do not show symptoms but severe bleeding and organ failure can occur in about a one case in five.
The virus takes its name from the town of Lassa in northern Nigeria, where it was first identified in 1969.
