How to Diagnose Lassa Fever

It is often difficult to diagnose lassa fever as the early symptoms are nonspecific and extremely varied. Lassa viral hemorrhagic fever, know as lassa fever, spreads to humans from infected rats and their urine or feces. The excrement often contaminates food or household items. Known as mastomys, the rats are common in West Africa where doctors diagnosed the first cases of the disease.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Take note of early symptoms of lassa fever that may include fever, malaise, weakness, muscle pain, chest pain, sore throat, headache, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, cough and abdominal pain.

2. Watch out for severe symptoms like low blood pressure, bleeding from the nose, mouth, gastrointestinal tract or vagina, fluid buildup in the lung cavity, facial swelling, protein in urine samples. Late stage symptoms may include tremor, disorientation, seizures, shock or coma.

3. Make an appointment with your physician immediately if you are experiencing symptoms of lassa fever, especially if you have recently traveled in West Africa.

4. Undergo a general physical exam performed by your medical practitioner.

5. Tell your doctor if you have traveled out of the country, especially if you visited West Africa.

6. Allow you doctor to take blood and body samples for highly specialized laboratory tests, which detect anti-lassa antibodies or lassa antigens.

7. Ask the doctor if you should start taking an antiviral drug called Rebetol (Ribavirin), or if he would suggest a different medication, if the lassa fever virus is present.

Tips & Warnings

• Mastomys rats are sometimes a source of food in many areas of West Africa.
• Lassa fever may occur if a person inhales tiny infected air particles. There have been isolated cases of lassa fever in the United States.
• Known lassa fever outbreaks have occurred in Nigeria, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Researchers believe it to be in other areas of Africa as well.
• It is estimated that lassa fever affects 100,000 to 300,000 people each year with the death rate approximately 5,000. During times of lassa fever epidemic, the death rate rises to 50 percent.
• Lassa fever is endemic, meaning it is always present, in many areas of Africa.

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