A Lassa fever case has been registered in Paris in France as UK tourists are warned. Lassa fever is difficult to diagnose without proper laboratory tests because it can present with various symptoms, ranging from no symptoms to multiple organ failure and death.
The case fatality rate is usually between one per cent and a whopping 15 pr cent in patients hospitalized with severe disease. The case was confirmed in a soldier who recently returned from abroad. Now, he is being treated at the Bégin military hospital in Saint-Mandé, Paris.
According to local health officials, an "in-depth epidemiological investigation is underway to determine the persons who may have been in contact with him", but luckily his current condition doesn't give "cause for concern".
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The incubation period of Lassa fever ranges from two to 21 days. It is transmitted to humans via content with items (food or household) contaminated with infected rodent urine or faeces. It starts with fever general weakness, and malaise.
After a few days, headache, sore throat, muscle pain, chest pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, cough, and abdominal pain may follow. In severe cases facial swelling, fluid in the lung cavity, bleeding from the mouth, nose, vagina or gastrointestinal tract and low blood pressure may develop.
Deafness occurs in 25 per cent of patients who survive the disease. In half of these cases, hearing returns partially after a period of one to three months. Death usually occurs within 14 days of onset in fatal cases, according to the African CDC.
About 80 per cent of people who become infected with Lassa virus have no symptoms, they also say. The virus is now endemic in several West African countries, including Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, and Togo.
The warning comes at a time where UK tourists descend on Paris ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics.
