Some 100 people exhibiting symptoms of Acute Fever and Rash (AFR) in American Samoa, including the fatality of a 28-year-old man, has prompted a health alert by Samoa’s Ministry of Health Wednesday.

Samoa mapIn a press conference yesterday, Dr.Seine Vaai-Neilsen said the symptoms of AFR is similar to that of dengue fever and is suspected to be a virus transmitted by a mosquito. Since July 7, Amrican Samoa has reported 102 cases of the disease.

In a Radio New Zealand interview yesterday, Monica Miller said, “So far the Department of Health and LBJ have called it the acute fever rash disease and that is basically because of the symptoms that people who have been afflicted by this disease have shown – basically fever, body aches and also great spots or blisters on the body. So far they have just sent off blood samples for testing off-island so it will take a week or two before the results are received but so far the latest information we have had from the health department – they have counted about up to 100 people who have these symptoms so until the test results come back we won’t know what exactly is causing this.

“The officials that we have talked to say that the 28 year old man – they suspect more a dengue fever type disease but just to determine that this is what actually caused his death they have sent of the blood samples from the deceased off-island and testing will be done in Hawaii for dengue fever – we will get the results of that earlier than the other results for chikungunya, zika and Ross river virus and these are done at the center of disease control in Atlanta, so we really can’t say but when he was taking to the hospital he had a very high fever and he was experiencing body aches and he had almost lost his appetite.” For more infectious disease news and information, visit and “like” the Infectious Disease News Facebook page