The United Kingdom has discovered a fatal haemorrhagic fever with "pandemic potential," according to health officials. Fever is an acute viral haemorrhagic sickness, comparable to Ebola, in which people become infected after consuming food or other products contaminated with infected rats' urine or faeces. The Lassa fever has been imported to the UK for the first time in a decade, according to the UK Health Security Agency, according to the Telegraph. While there is no effective treatment or vaccine, two vaccines are in phase one testing in 2019, and another is in human studies. The virus has been classified as having pandemic potential, and it is listed on the WHO's priority diseases list with viruses like Ebola and dengue fever.
The Lassa fever claimed its first casualty in the UK on February 11. So what is this new disease? The virus is named after a town in Nigeria where the first cases were discovered. The death rate associated with this disease is at around one per cent. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, about 80 per cent of the cases are asymptomatic and therefore remain undiagnosed. The fever was first discovered in 1969 when two nurses died of it and the fever spreads via rats. The fever is endemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and Nigeria.
A person can be infected if they come in contact with an object or food contaminated with rat urine or faeces of an infected rat. One can even contract it if one comes in contact with bodily fluids through mucous membranes in the eyes, mouth or nose of an infected person. Symptoms usually appear one to three weeks after exposure. Mild symptoms include fever, fatigue, weakness and headache, while, more serious symptoms include bleeding, difficulty breathing, vomiting, facial swelling, pain in the chest, back, and abdomen and shock.
The best way to prevent this is to prevent food from being contaminated by rats. Maintain hygiene in and around your surroundings, prevent rats from entering homes or workplaces and lay down rat traps.
