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An Iowa resident dies from Lassa fever, an Ebola virus, according to the CDC

The person had recently returned from a trip to West Africa. Lassa fever is a viral disease similar to the Ebola virus.

An eastern Iowa resident died Monday of an Ebola-like viral illness he likely contracted during a recent trip to West Africa.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the person is believed to be the ninth case of Lassa fever in the United States in more than half a century. Lassa fever is often transmitted through the excretions of an infected rodent found in West Africa. The middle-aged Iowa resident returned from a trip to the region in early October, Iowa public health officials said in a news release.

The CDC is conducting final laboratory testing after the person received a presumptive positive result on Monday. The person died Monday afternoon while being treated in isolation from other patients at the University of Iowa Health Care Medical Center hospital. Lassa fever has similar symptoms to the Ebola virus and causes hemorrhagic fever. But experts say the disease is far less likely to be fatal than Ebola.

State and federal officials said the risk of transmission is low. The person did not become ill during the trip, so the risk of spreading the disease to fellow travelers is “extremely low,” the CDC said.

“We continue to investigate and monitor this situation and implement the necessary public health protocols,” said Dr. Robert Kruse, state medical director of the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, in a statement.

Lassa fever typically spreads through the urine or feces of infected rodents. The West African multimammary rat is the only known carrier of the virus. These rats are found in sub-Saharan Africa, and Lassa fever has been detected in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria, the CDC said. People can spread it through blood or body fluids if they have active symptoms.

In a news release, CDC officials said preliminary information suggests the patient may have had contact with rodents during a visit to West Africa. Officials declined to provide further details about the individual and are currently working to identify others who may have been in contact with the individual at the time symptoms appeared.

People who are in close contact with the infected person will be monitored for three weeks, according to the CDC. The incubation period of the virus is between two and 21 days.

Prior to this case, eight other people in the United States were found to have Lassa fever after returning from the region where Lassa fever was detected, the CDC said. About 5,000 people die from the virus in West Africa each year, including about 100,000 to 300,000 cases annually, according to the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most people have mild or no symptoms of the disease and deaths are rare, experts say.

The mortality rate of Lassa fever is much lower than that of Ebola or Marburg virus, another hemorrhagic fever with a high mortality rate, said Dr. David Hamer, professor of global health and medicine at Boston University. In the United States, rats are unlikely to contract Lassa fever or transmit it to humans, he said.

In rural West Africa, rats typically spread the disease when they are near human food sources. People can then inhale the virus or come into contact with infected rats in the urine or feces of rats.

If someone is sick, there is a risk of human spread, especially to family members, friends and health care workers caring for patients with the virus. Infections are also believed to occur through sexual transmission through the exchange of body fluids.

Human transmission, Hamer said, “raises concern for possible introduction and spread in the United States.”.“However, he noted, ‘This is the ninth case since the 1960s.’ So it was a rare event.”

The last case of Lassa fever brought to the U.S. was in 2016, according to federal records. Then, a 33-year-old nurse from Georgia became ill after treating an infected patient in Togo. Eventually she recovered. The last death from the virus occurred in 2015, when a 55-year-old man from New Jersey became infected after working in Liberia and coming into contact with rodents and their waste.

Following Monday's deaths, officials have identified four Americans who died of Lassa fever, out of nine recorded cases of the disease here.

What are the symptoms of Lassa fever?

According to African health authorities, the signs and symptoms of Lassa typically appear gradually. Infections are treated with the antiviral drug ribavirin.

Symptoms include fever, weakness and malaise, followed by headache, sore throat, muscle or chest pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, cough and abdominal pain, according to the African agency responsible for disease control. People with severe cases sometimes experience facial swelling, fluid in the lungs, bleeding from the mouth, nose, genitals, or gastrointestinal tract, and low blood pressure.

Deafness occurs in 25% of patients who survive the disease, but for most of these patients hearing returns in the following months. Death usually occurs within two weeks of the onset of the disease, the African disease control agency said.

The first documented cases of Lassa fever in the United States occurred in 1969. The viral disease takes its name from the Nigerian city where two missionary nurses died from it, according to Britain's Health Security Agency.

Infections typically occur in the dry season between December and April and follow the multimammary rat reproductive cycle in the rainy season, according to the World Health Organization.

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