Lassa fever in West African sub-region: an overview

Abstract

Lassa fever is an acute viral zoonotic illness caused by Lassa virus, an arenavirus known to beresponsible for a severe haemorrhagic fever characterised by fever, muscle aches, sore throat, nausea,vomiting and, chest and abdominal pain. The virus exhibits persistent, asymptomatic infection withprofuse urinary virus excretion in the ubiquitous rodent vector, Mastomys natalensis. Lassa fever isendemic in West Africa and has been reported from Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, and Nigeria. Somestudies indicate that 300,000 to 500,000 cases of Lassa fever and 5000 deaths occur yearly across WestAfrica. Studies reported in English, that investigated Lassa fever with reference to West Africa wereidentified using the Medline Entrez-PubMed search and were used for this review. The scarcity ofresources available for health care delivery system and the political instability that characterise theWest African countries would continue to impede efforts for the control of Lassa fever in the sub-region.There is need for adequate training of health care workers regarding diagnostics, intensive care ofpatients under isolation, contact tracing, adequate precautionary measures in handling infectiouslaboratory specimens, control of the vector as well as care and disposal of infectious waste.

Keywords

• Infection
• Lassa fever
• Mastomys natalensis
• West Africa