Lassa fever death reported in country where Ebola epidemic first emerged

Authorities in Guinea have announced the first death from Lassa fever in more than two decades, heightening anxiety about another haemorrhagic fever in the West African country where an Ebola epidemic first emerged.

The Ebola outbreak in late 2013 went on to kill more than 11,000 people, in part because local authorities and the international community were slow to act when cases first popped up in a rural part of the deeply impoverished nation.