US resident died from Lassa fever probably contracted in West Africa

A middle aged US resident who returned from West Africa earlier this month died on 28 October while isolated in a hospital in the central state of Iowa, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and University of Iowa Health Care have confirmed.12

Neither the CDC nor the University of Iowa identified the patient by age, sex, or name, although they said that the person lived in eastern Iowa. The patient died in a special pathogen unit at the University of Iowa, part of the university’s hospital campus in Iowa City.

The CDC said, “The patient was not sick while traveling so the …