Lassa Fever

Lassa fever is not a quiet illness. It often begins insidiously — fever, fatigue, sore throat — and can escalate within a few days: into organ failure, internal bleeding, a fight for survival. It is an infectious disease that requires emergency medical care, immediately and without detour. That comes first here and is not relativised.

And yet the psychosomatic perspective poses a question that does not stand against the medical one, but alongside it: What is happening in a person whose body collapses so violently? What does an organism show when it suddenly releases everything — stability, control, foothold — and enters a state that resembles a free fall?

Lassa fever is an alarm — not only biological, but existential too.