Ebola Survivors may Suffer from Vision Problems, Hearing Loss, Joint Pain

Many Ebola-survivors endured the debilitating after-effects of the disease without access to treatment in west African countries stretched beyond their limits by the worst Ebola outbreak in history. The lucky ones who survive Ebola may suffer potentially blinding vision problems, hearing loss and joint pain for months afterwards, reported medical experts.

Of 277 survivors examined at a clinic in Sierra Leone, about four months after they were discharged, nearly 80% reported joint pain. 60% experienced vision problems, 18% suffered eye inflammation that could make them blind, and 25% reported hearing difficulties.

‘Survivors of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa are experiencing significant long-term effects with potential for long-term disability including visual problems, hearing loss and joint pain. This emphasizes the importance of ongoing clinical follow-up and care of all patients.’

Lead author Sharmistha Mishra of the University of Toronto said, "The numbers were higher than we initially expected."

There had been reports of Ebola after-effects before this outbreak, which started in December 2013.

But the new study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, claimed to be the largest and most detailed yet into the nature of post-Ebola complications, and how widespread they were.

Mishra said, "Survivors of the outbreak in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea are experiencing significant long-term effects with potential for long-term disability including visual loss."

The research team had examined Ebola survivors in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, between March 7 and April 24, 2015. They found that the higher a patient's 'viral load' had been at the height of their illness, the worse the complications afterwards.

And the team uncovered further evidence that Ebola virus may live on in specialized 'sanctuary sites' in the body - including the eye, where it may be the cause of the vision problems many patients had reported.

While Ebola virus clears from the blood within weeks, the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) has previously said it may persist for up to a year in the eye or semen, and in the breast milk of women infected while pregnant.

The WHO website says transmission by survivors, sexually or otherwise, appears to be rare.

One of the study authors was American doctor Ian Crozier, who fell ill while treating patients in Sierra Leone, recovered, and in whose eye doctors found Ebola virus months after his hospital discharge.

The team pointed out there had been hardly any care for Ebola survivors in the early part of the outbreak due to the overwhelming and urgent challenge of treating the ill.

The author wrote, "These findings emphasize the importance of ongoing clinical follow-up and care of all patients, starting at discharge from an ETU (Ebola treatment unit)." They also underscored the urgent need for the greater provision of ocular (eye) care.

Commenting on the study, Luke Hunt of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine said, "There was a dire need to rebuild west Africa's shattered health systems. The consequences of the world's largest outbreak of EVD extend beyond the immediate effect of the epidemic."

Source: AFP