'Post-Ebola Syndrome' Persists After Virus Is Cured, Doctor Says

[mfcorey1]

West Africans fortunate to survive Ebola may go on to develop what's being called "post-Ebola syndrome," characterized by vision loss and long-term poor health, a doctor told a World health Organization.

“We are seeing a lot of people with vision problems,” Dr. Margaret Nanyonga, a psycho-social support officer for WHO, said at a conference in Sierra Leone last week. “Some complain of clouded vision, but for others the visual loss is progressive. I have seen two people who are now blind.”

Approximately 50 percent of Ebola survivors she has treated in Kenema, Sierra Leone’s third-largest city, report declining health after fighting off the deadly virus, Nanyonga said. Besides deteriorating vision, they are complaining of body aches, chest pain, headaches and fatigue. This is consistent with symptoms experienced by survivors in previous outbreaks, she said.

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert who is a professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, said he was not aware of a post-Ebola syndrome but was not surprised that health of West African Ebola survivors deteriorates after recovery.

https://gma.yahoo.com/post-ebola-syndrome-persists-virus-cured-doctor-says-181100681--abc-news-topstories.html

[Warpy]

1. Nor am I, not really

Ebola is an extremely dangerous disease that most people in West Africa are not surviving. Those who do have been seriously ill and likely what is causing the vision problems is blood within the eye. Blood leaked into other organs and tissues likely also causes long term illness.

If they had a first world medical system, likely this could be verified by opthalmologists, nephrologists, neurologists and gastroenterologists. Unfortunately, trying to keep them alive has been the only priority.

[Hekate]

2. That's my reactiion, Warpy. I don't think those nurses will be back at work all that fast....

...and will need their health monitored for a long time.

[Control-Z]

4. I've wondered if the care received

here in the US has helped to prevent the worst of the damage from this disease. We are given just small amounts of information regarding progress. "Serious but stable" kind of reports. Do the health care workers treated here actually reach the ravaging stages of the disease that we've all heard about now? Or do our treatments help prevent that level of deterioration? They certainly seem to recover more quickly here.

I guess I'm wondering if this syndrome occurs when more damage occurs initially.

[LeftInTX]

5. I think in Nina's and Amber's case, their early treatment and possible

experimental transfusions helped a lot.

Here is a video of Nina Pham, about 5 days after she was admitted.

[Warpy]

6. They have not only been given the experimental drug

they have also been given infusions of antibodies from other patients who have survived it.

I think the early treatment plus those two things have probably prevented the worst of the long term problems.

I hope they are being followed by an opthalmologist, at the very least.