Lassa fever
Acute disease caused by an arenavirus, first detected in 1969, and spread by a species of rat found only in west Africa. It is classified as a haemorrhagic fever and characterized by high fever, headache, muscle pain, and internal bleeding. There is no known cure, the survival rate being less than 50%.
In west Africa 300,000 to 500,000 cases occur each year, causing approximately 5,000 deaths (as of 2006).
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