Lassa fever - The deadly disease in Nigeria is scarier than Covid-19

Victory Ovuoreoyen, a small businessman, was barely able to walk and feared for his life when he was admitted to the Federal Medical Center in Owo City, Southwest Nigeria. He had a fever, vomiting and severe diarrhea.

Help colleagues adjust PPE in Nigeria.

However, after four days in the isolation ward, this skinny patient is now able to sit upright on the hospital bed. Mr. Ovuoreoyen, one of the few patients in the clinic who is well enough to speak. "Before I got sick, I didn't have the strength to count my bones like this. I've lost a lot of weight," he says, pointing to his collarbone clearly visible under his wide blind shirt. cross.

Doctors assured the 48-year-old that he would recover from Lassa fever, an acute hemorrhagic disease similar to Ebola. He is a lucky man. Although 80% of people infected with Lassa virus do not become seriously ill and most cases go undiagnosed, the mortality rate among patients who end up hospitalized is 15%, according to the World Health Organization. . With an incubation period of 2 to 21 days, severe symptoms can begin to appear one week after the onset of illness. By then it may be too late.

Lassa fever lowers the number of platelets in the blood and reduces the ability of the blood to clot, causing internal bleeding. Fatal organ failure can occur after a few days.

Initial symptoms include headache and muscle pain, sore throat, nausea, and fever. At first, they could not distinguish Lassa fever from symptoms of malaria, a common disease in the area. The hospital's lab in Owo is the only one in the state that performs the Lassa diagnostic blood test, and the results are available in just two days. The combination of these factors often results in Lassa fever being detected at a late stage, which is more difficult to treat.

The entrance to a ward for Lassa fever patients in Nigeria.

Owo, a farmers market hub 300km (186 miles) from Nigeria's capital Abuja, was the epicenter of the Lassa fever outbreak that began earlier this year, killing more than 160 people. At the peak in March, 38 beds in the isolation ward were insufficient and an additional 10 beds were added for suspected cases. In this part of Nigeria, people are much more afraid of the Lassa virus than the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The state of Ondo, where Owo is located, has since 2020 recorded 171 Lassa virus deaths, compared with 85 deaths from Covid-19, according to the Center for Infection Research and Control at Nigerian hospitals. .

Despite its widespread presence in West Africa, the disease remains little known in most of the world. The virus was discovered in 1969 in the town of Lassa, in Northern Nigeria, about 1,000km (621 miles) from Owo. Since then, it has become endemic to at least five West African countries. Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, recorded the highest number of cases, up to 1,000 a year. This year, in January alone, Nigeria recorded 211 confirmed cases, of which 40 patients died.

According to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lassa fever infects between 100,000 and 300,000 people in Africa each year, of which thousands die.

An infected person can infect others through bodily fluids. Lassa fever often causes miscarriage, can be passed from mother to baby, and persists in breast milk for up to 6 months. Like other dengue viruses that have no cure and are easy to reproduce, scientists have warned that the Lassa virus could be used as a biological weapon.