Health worker during an outbreak of Lassa fever in the village of Serabu near Kenema, Sierra Leone.
Karen Kasmauski/Corbis via Getty Images
South Africa has identified an imported case of Lassa fever, a hemorrhagic virus harboured by rats and transmitted to humans. The infection is the first to be detected in the country since 2007.
The case was identified in a man in the southeastern province of KwaZulu-Natal who had travelled to Nigeria, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said in a statement on Friday. The man has died, the NICD said.
Lassa fever is endemic in West Africa and kills about 5 000 people a year.