The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that more than 150 people who came into contact with the New Jersey man who died of Lassa fever this week have been identified. However, only about six people are at high risk for developing the disease. Another 33 people are considered to be at low risk. All of them are being monitored.
The man died Monday after having returned to the United States from Liberia on May 17. He first flew from Monrovia to Morocco. Eight of the people being monitored were on the same plane from Morocco to the United States, according to the Associated Press. The man had no symptoms on the plane or on arriving at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
Because he had been in Liberia, where the Ebola epidemic has just ended, he was told at the airport to take his temperature twice a day and report to the health department in Newark. However, when he went to the hospital the next day with a fever and sore throat, he did not reveal he had been in West Africa. He was sent home but then returned to the hospital a few days later and was transferred to University Hospital in Newark, where he died.
Lassa fever is a viral disease that is similar to Ebola. It has similar symptoms: diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding, but it is not as easily spread as Ebola. Lassa also has a much smaller mortality rate, with only about 1% of patients dying compared to 70% of patients with Ebola. It is common in West Africa.
There has never been a known case of Lassa that that was transmitted from one person to another within the United States. In West Africa, Lassa is carried by rodents and humans can contract it by coming into contact with infected urine or feces.
