A person hospitalized in England died of Lassa fever, announced Friday February 11 the British health security agency (UKHSA), which identified a total of three cases of this disease in the United Kingdom.
Read alsoLassa fever epidemic in Nigeria: setting up an emergency center
The agency said "
contact people who have been in close contact with the cases before their infection
was confirmed" and stressed that "
the risk to the general public remains very low
".
“
We confirm the sad death of a patient at our hospital, who had a confirmed case of Lassa fever
,” said a spokesperson for Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, a hospital center located in the south of England, quoted in the UKHSA press release.
On Wednesday, the UKHSA had confirmed two cases of Lassa fever in England linked to recent travel to West Africa.
They are two members of the same family.
The last cases of the disease in the UK were over a decade ago, in 2009.
Endemic to Nigeria, Lassa hemorrhagic fever belongs to the same family as the Ebola and Marburg viruses, but is much less violent.
Each year, the number of cases usually spikes towards the beginning of the year during the dry season.
Lassa fever is transmitted through rodent excretions or direct contact with blood, urine, stool or other body fluids of a sick person.
Once declared, this fever can cause bleeding in the most severe cases (about one in five cases).
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