Ebola may leave lasting neurological problems

On the heels of reports that British nurse Pauline Cafferkey was hospitalized a third time after contracting Ebola in Sierra Leone in December 2014, a new study has emerged, suggesting most Ebola survivors suffer from long-term brain health issues. Bowen and her team tracked 82 Ebola survivors and discovered brain symptoms lasted for more than six months after patients survived treatment. The most common ongoing problems were weakness, headache, memory loss, depressed mood and muscle pain.

Cafferkey was treated twice at an isolation unit at London’s Royal Free Hospital, Britain’s only isolation ward for the lethal disease, after suffering an “unusual complication” of her first infection.

She contracted the deadly virus while working as a nurse at the Save the Children treatment centre in Kerry Town, Sierra Leone.

An analysis, sponsored by the Liberian Ministry of Health and by the National Institutes of Health, was led by Lauren Bowen, affiliated with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, from Bethesda, Maryland. They found most of the survivors had some neurologic abnormality at least six months after their infections were confirmed. These findings will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s Annual Meeting at Vancouver in April.

Health agencies around the world as well as the World Health Organization are asking for further research to be conducted into Ebola, the virus causing the disease and the effects on Ebola patients. The Prevail III study is monitoring patients that have been infected with Ebola, using their close contacts as study controls – which will allow them to determine which of the symptoms experienced were directly as a result of Ebola.

“It is important for us to know how this virus may continue to affect the brain long term”, she said.

Two of the participants were suicidal and one had hallucinations.

11,300 people have succumbed to the disease, while the rest have managed to pull through, but it appears even they remain shaken and frail after facing this life-threatening illness.

Dr Derek Gatherer, from Lancaster University, previously told Sky News that people who fight off Ebola produce antibodies that “kill off the virus in most bodily fluids”.

“It is very sad to hear that Ms Cafferkey has once again been admitted to hospital”, said Derek Gatherer from Lancaster University.