Lassa virus is a very severe virus that kills nearly 20% of those infected with it. The most interesting thing about this virus is that it is rarely spread from human to human. It is mostly spread through a vector, which in the case of Lassa virus are rodents. This virus is also primarily spread in places where people are in close contact with rodents. In a area in which rats or mice travel from home to home. The virus doesn’t affect the rodents it just lives in them, so they are essentially a reservoir of the virus, they just keep giving and giving. This is very scary in countries where sanitation is poor and rodent control is minimal. Another problem is the virus can live in the rodents experiments and saliva. So when a rodent sneaks into a house and maybe takes a bite out a loaf of bread and people don’t notice or choose to eat it anyways because that is their only food source they can become infected with the Lassa virus. The problem why Lassa is so bad is because it just seems like a common cold or flu for a while so it goes undiagnosed relatively often. But after a certain period of time those infect start to develop a hemorrhagic fever. This means that blood vessels begin to break and host starts internally bleeding. This can cause a lot of internal problems and also causes the body to become rapidly dehydrated. Blood also comes out of the body's orifices. Something that can further transmit the disease.
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