Lassa Virus

Abstract

Lassa virus is a RNA virus belonging to the family of Arenaviridae. It was discovered as the causative agent of a hemorrhagic fever—Lassa fever—about 30 years ago. Lassa fever is endemic in West Africa and is estimated to affect some 100,000 people annually. Great progress in the understanding of the life cycle of arenaviruses, including Lassa virus, has been made in recent years. New insights have been gained in the pathogenesis and molecular epidemiology of Lassa fever, and state-of the-art technologies for diagnosing this life-threatening disease have been developed. The intention of this review is to summarize in particular the recent literature on Lassa virus and Lassa fever. Several aspects ranging from basic research up to clinical practice and laboratory diagnosis are discussed and linked together.

Keywords :

• arenavirus
• lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus
• Lassa fever
• phylogeny
• molecular diagnostics

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Herbert Schmitz for critically reading the manuscript. The work of the authors was supported by grants E/B31E/M0171/M5916 and E/B41G/1G309/1A403 from the Bundesamt für Wehrtechnik und Beschaffung, by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB286 and Ga282/4-1), and by the European Community (INCO-grant ERBIC 18 CT9803832). The Bernhard-Nocht-Institute is supported by the Bundesministerium für Gesundheit and the Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg.

Notes

a Editor's note: A ubiquitous protein structure (superhelix) that mediates oligomerization of proteins.

b Editor's note: A clade is a phylogenetic term describing a group of organisms that have a common ancestor.