At Togoone person died of Lassa fever in the Savannah region in the north of the country according to an announcement made by the Ministry of Public Health on February 27, 2022. The case was confirmed on February 26 in a 35-year-old woman, residing in the Oti-Sud prefecture, who died complications of the disease.
In order to protect the population, the health authorities have taken measures, including the intensification of investigations in the community for the search for possible cases or deaths and the tracing of contacts.
Reminders on the Lassa fever :
The Lassa fever is a hemorrhagic fever caused by a Arenaviridae the virus Lassa. This is endemic in several West African countries, Nigeria, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where epidemic outbreaks occur regularly and affect 100 to 300,000 people per year, of whom 5 to 6,000 die. .
The main reservoir of the Lassa virus is a small peri-domestic rodent called Mastomys natalensis. The virus is transmitted to humans through contact with animal excrement (urine, faeces). Many of these rodents live near or even inside homes, and their infection rate can be as high as 80%. Contact between man and the infected reservoir is therefore very frequent in the villages. The virus can also be transmitted from human to human, mainly in a hospital context, by cutaneous-mucous contact with the biological fluids of a patient.
The clinical picture of Lassa fever is variable, from asymptomatic infection, which is very common (80% of cases), to lightning hemorrhagic fever. The disease begins 6 to 21 days following infection with non-specific clinical signs: fever, vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, headache, myalgia, arthralgia, asthenia. In severe cases, the symptoms then worsen, with the appearance of edema, haemorrhagic signs, pericardial and pleural effusions, and more rarely encephalitis. The patient dies in a context of hypotensive and hypovolemic shock and renal and hepatic failures.
Lassa fever is extremely serious for pregnant women, frequently leading to the death of the mother and systematically to that of the fetus.
Source : ProMED.
