An Iowa resident has died after contracting a terrifying viral disease similar to Ebola that leaves victims bleeding from their eyeballs.
The patient had returned to the U.S. from West Africa earlier this month and brought back the disease known as Lassa Fever, which is rare in the U.S., health officials said.
The person was not sick while traveling, meaning the risk to fellow passengers is “extremely low,” officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Patients are not believed to be contagious before symptoms appear and the virus is not spread through casual contact.
An Iowa resident has died after contracting a terrifying viral disease called Lassa Fever, similar to Ebola, that causes victims to bleed from their eyeballs
In June this year, researchers will study Lassa fever. The viral disease is endemic in several West African countries and is transmitted by rodents
The patient, who has not been publicly identified, was placed in isolation at the University of Iowa Health Care Medical Center hospital in Iowa City.
On Monday, testing by the Nebraska Laboratory Response Network revealed that the patient had died of Lassa fever.
If the results are confirmed, the Iowa case would be the ninth known case of Lassa fever since 1969 among travelers returning to the U.S. from areas where the disease has been found.
The CDC is now helping health officials in Iowa identify people who had contact with the patient after symptoms began. Those identified as close contacts will be monitored for three weeks.
Lassa fever, caused by the Lassa virus, is a relatively common disease in West Africa, with between 100,000 and 300,000 cases diagnosed and approximately 5,000 deaths annually.
Health workers in protective gear are seen burying a 13-year-old boy who died of Lassa fever in 2014 (file photo)
The person was not sick while traveling, meaning the risk to fellow passengers is “extremely low,” officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Symptoms are usually mild and include fever, fatigue and headache, but some people may experience vomiting, difficulty breathing, swelling of the face and pain in the back, chest or stomach.
State and local health officials are trying to determine how the patient became infected.
They are believed to have come into contact with rodents in West Africa.
The virus itself is transmitted by rodents and spreads to humans through contact with urine or feces of the infected animals.
Rarely, it can be transmitted between people through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of a sick person, through mucous membranes, or through sexual contact.
Lassa fever is named after a Nigerian city where Western-trained doctors first noticed it in 1969.