Lassa fever historical perspective
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Ammu Susheela, M.D. [2]
Overview
Lassa fever caused by Arenaviridae is an acute viral illness that has been reported at first in West Africa. Although there has been sero-epidemeological evidence of Lassa fever in 1930's-1950's, the first case was reported in 1969 from Nigeria.
Historic Perspective
- Lassa fever is an acute viral illness that occurs in west Africa. The illness was discovered in 1969 when two missionary nurses died in Nigeria. The virus is named after the town in Nigeria where the first cases occurred. The virus, a member of the virus family Arenaviridae, is a single-stranded RNA virus and is zoonotic, or animal-borne.
- The illness was discovered in 1969 when two missionary nurses died in Nigeria, West Africa. The cause of the illness was found to be Lassa virus, named after the town in Nigeria where the first cases originated. Early and aggressive treatment using Ribavirin was pioneered by Joe McCormick in 1979.
- 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. In 2009, the first case from Mali was reported in a traveler living in southern Mali; Ghana reported its first cases in late 2011. Isolated cases have also been reported in Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso and there is serologic evidence of Lassa virus infection in Togo and Benin.
- The number of Lassa virus infections per year in west Africa is estimated at 100,000 to 300,000, with approximately 5,000 deaths. Unfortunately, such estimates are crude, because surveillance for cases of the disease is not uniformly performed. In some areas of Sierra Leone and Liberia, it is known that 10%-16% of people admitted to hospitals every year have Lassa fever, which indicates the serious impact of the disease on the population of this region. [1]
- Based on the sero-epidemiological studies, it is estimated that Lassa fever might have occurred without clinical recognition years before the first case reported in 1969. Few such cases are mentioned below[2].
- 14 day history of fever, rash, headache, bradycardia, puffy face was reported on a Nigerian Missionary from Makurdi in 1935.
- Lassa neutralizing antibody was obtained from a patient who was a missionary in Nigeria by Henderson et al. in 1971 and he had a history of Lassa like illness in 1952.
- In Eastern Province and Sierra Leone, epidemics which has clinical and epidemiological resemblance to Lassa fever has been reported in 1955-1956.
References
- ↑ "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention".
- ↑ Monath TP (1975). "Lassa fever: review of epidemiology and epizootiology". Bull World Health Organ. 52 (4–6): 577–92. PMC 2366662. PMID 782738.