New Rat-Borne Disease Kills 4 In South Africa

October 27, 2008 11:11 p.m. EST

Johannesburg, South Africa (AHN) - Four people have died in South African hospitals from a hemorrhagic fever caused by a new rodent-borne virus while one is recuperating from the same disease.

Cecilia van Deventer, a safari tour guide from Zambia, was the first fatality of arena virus dying on Sept. 14 at the Morningside Medi-Clinic in Johannesburg or two days after she was airlifted from Zambia.

Hannes Els, a paramedic who cared for Deventer, died on Oct. 2 while Gladys Mthembu, a nurse who attended to the tour guide, died on Oct. 4 at the Sir Albert Medical Centre. Maria Mokubung, a cleaner at Morningside, was also infected and died on Oct. 6 at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital.

A doctor who treated Mokubung linked the patient's death to the arena virus, according to the South African news website IOL. Officials of the Morningside hospital has yet to officially confirm the cause of the deaths to the new virus.

Meanwhile, a nurse from the Morningside is recuperating from the disease at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, Morningside spokesperson Melinda Pelser told IOL.

Pelser said as many as 31 people had been infected with the virus but have recovered. Sixty-six patients with symptoms of the arena virus are under observation at the Sir Albert hospital.

A World Health Organization report on the first three deaths described the symptoms as fever, headaches, diarrhea, myalgia and rash. Liver failure follows.

Arena virus belongs to a family of virus that also causes Lassa fever, an acute viral haemorrhagic illness common in West Africa. Like Lassa fever, humans are infected with arena virus upon contact with urine or feces of rodents.