Department of Disease Control: no cases of Lassa fever found in Thailand

BANGKOK, 21 January 20156 (NNT) - The Department of Disease Control has announced that Thailand has no confirmed case of the Lassa fever that is currently afflicting Nigeria, killing 76 patients.

Lassa fever was first discovered in West Africa in 1950 and is a rodent-borne disease. Patients have often contracted the fever through contact with mice feces.

Symptoms include a flu-like illness followed by vomiting, diarrhea, and chest pains. In severe cases, the fever can lead to eye and throat bleeding, facial swelling, thrombocytopenia and deafness.

Deputy Director General of the Department of Disease Control Dr Opart Karnkawinpong indicated that Lassa fever is different from the usual dengue fever which is a mosquito-borne disease and is also very different from Ebola.

Although Lassa fever isn’t easily contracted, he has warned tourists and workers traveling to Nigeria to refrain from entering slums and areas with rats. There is currently no report of the “Lassa” fever occurring in Thailand.


-- NNT 2016-01-21

Have they looked?

Don't worry unnecessarily folks, because if they do find it they'll develop a miracle cure within 12 hours.

Edited January 21, 201610 yr by joebrown

It isnt common place to hear of Lassa fever outside of Africa so why has happened to prompt this?

Have they looked?

Probably not. And, even if they did look, they probably would not find it. The vast majority of doctors that I have interacted with in Southern Thailand have no clue as to how to diagnose. And this includes supposedly competent neurologists in a well known, international, Phuket hospital who graduated from a leading Thai university. Pathetic!