BY MARILYNN MARCHIONE
For the first time, Ebola has been discovered inside the
eyes of a patient months after the virus was gone from his blood.
The new report concerns Dr.
Ian Crozier, a 43-year-old American physician diagnosed with Ebola in September
while working with the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone. Ebola has
infected more than 26,000 people since December 2013 in West
Africa . Some survivors have reported eye problems but how often
they occur isn't known. The virus also is thought to be able to persist in
semen for several months.
He was treated at Emory University
Hospital 's special Ebola unit in Atlanta and released in
October when Ebola was no longer detected in his blood. Two months later, he
developed an inflammation and very high blood pressure in one eye, which causes
swelling and potentially serious vision problems.
He returned to Emory, where
ophthalmologist Dr. Steven Yeh drained some of the fluid and had it tested for
Ebola. It contained the virus but tears and tissue around the outside of his
eye did not.
That suggests that casual contact with an Ebola survivor poses no
public health risk, but shows that survivors need to be monitored for the eye
problem, Yeh said.
*Dr. Ian Crozier
Crozier has not fully recovered his vision but continues to
improve, Yeh said.
Dr. Jay Varkey, an Emory infectious disease specialist, said those
involved in Crozier's care wore recommended protective gear and monitored
themselves for Ebola symptoms for several weeks afterward as a precaution.
Doctors discussed the case at an Association for Research in
Vision and Ophthalmology conference in Denver
on Thursday, and the New England Journal of Medicine published their account
online.
Earlier Thursday, the World
Health Organization said that the number of Ebola cases reported in Guinea and Sierra Leone last week dropped to
its lowest total this year. And Liberia ,
which has had the most deaths in the outbreak — more than 4,700 — plans on
Saturday to declare the outbreak over in that country unless new cases are
discovered.
No comments:
Post a Comment