An American physician assistant suspected of having Lassa fever arrived in Atlanta on Saturday on a medevac flight from West Africa operated by a Cartersville, Ga., aircraft company specializing in transporting those with infectious diseases.
“The worker had cared for or had contact with a Lassa fever patient at a hospital in Togo,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.
The patient is being treated in the Serious Communicable Diseases Unit at Emory University Hospital for symptoms consistent with a fever-related illness. CDC’s Viral Special Pathogens Branch will assist Emory with laboratory management of the patient and testing.
Lassa fever is a virus spread by rats that is endemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia, New Guinea and Nigeria, according to the CDC. Symptoms can be similar to Ebola, including hemorrhagic fever and bleeding, although 80 percent of patients experience mild symptoms and can even go undiagnosed, according to the World Health Organization. There are treatments, the CDC said, and only about 1 percent of patients die from the Lassa virus.
The Lassa fever diagnosis for the American health care worker has not yet been confirmed, according to the CDC. But those who transported the health worker and those at Emory are treating the patient as if he has the contagious disease.
Cartersville-based Phoenix Air transported the health worker using an Aeromedical Biological Containment System it also used during the Ebola criss. The Chattanooga-based Safety Plus cleaned up and decontaminated the Gulfstream jet after the patient arrived.
“We are now in the process of a deep decontamination program of the aircraft after which it will go back into service,” Phoenix Air Chief Operating Officer Dent Thompson told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
The patient has been working with a missionary organization in the West African nation of Togo.
Because of the risk of infection, sufferers need to be strictly isolated. In Cologne, Germany, a Lassa-stricken health worker died Wednesday after being transported out of West Africa.
Phoenix Air, which also transported more than 40 Ebola patients under a contract it has with the U.S. State Department form August 2014 to April 2015, said it handled the Lassa patient with protocols similar to its Ebola flights.
Although the Lassa fever is less contagious and threatening for most individuals, Thompson told the Times Free Press Friday Phoenix Air handles transports of such infectious disease individuals in a similar manner.
This was the first Lassa fever transport for Phoenix Air.