The mystery viral hemorrhagic fever which killed three people in South Africa has been provisionally identified as an arenavirus, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the Department of Health said on Sunday.
"The causative agent of the disease... may be a rodent-born arenavirus related to the Lassa fever virus of West Africa," NICD's Dr Lucille Blumberg told reporters at the Charlotte Maxexe Johannesburg Academic Hospital.
She said tests done by the NICD and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the United States, indicated that the disease seemed to be a kind of an arenavirus. The World Health Organization has also been providing technical assistance.
Arenaviruses cause chronic infections in multimammatic mice - a kind of wild mouse -- who excrete the virus in their urine which can then contaminate human food or house dust.
Viruses similar to the Lassa fever virus had been found in rodents in Africa, but other than in West Africa have not been found to cause diseases in humans.
She said there was no indication that arenaviruses which could cause disease in humans were present in South African rodents.
Blumberg said further tests still needed to be done.