West Africa’s Ebola survivors face lingering health issues
Many are unable to work because of joint pain, eye trouble or trauma
Many Ebola survivors in West Africa are suffering from lingering health problems due to the virus, according to doctors working with the World Health Organization.
Half of survivors have joint pain, which can leave them too debilitated to work, said Daniel Bausch, a member of the WHO clinical care team and an associate professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans. About 25% have eye complications, which can range from vision changes to uveitis, an inflammation inside the eye that can lead to blindness if not treated.
But treating Ebola-related eye problems isn’t easy. Sierra Leone — a nation of more than 6.4 million people — has only two ophthalmologists, Bausch said.
Ebola survivors also have dealt with the psychological trauma of the disease, Bausch said.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which began in December 2013, is the largest in history. More than 27,860 people have had Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and 11,281 have died, according to the WHO. That leaves more than 16,000 survivors. The largest outbreak before this was in Uganda in 2000-01, with 425 cases, only half of whom survived.
“The world has never seen so many survivors,” said Anders Nordstrom, the WHO representative for Sierra Leone. “This is new, both from a medical point of view, but also from a societal point of view.”
In some ways, everyone living in the three countries is a survivor. Virtually everyone knows someone who died from the virus, and everyone has lived with the effects of Ebola on the economy, health care system and society, Nordstrom said.
Doctors don’t have enough experience treating Ebola survivors to know exactly what to expect.
But Alie Wurie, of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Sierra Leone, said he’s concerned about what will happen when women who survived Ebola get pregnant. Doctors don’t know how Ebola will affect pregnant survivors or their children.
Doctors do know that pregnant Ebola patients were at very high risk of death and very few gave birth to live children, Bausch said. Most babies were miscarried or stillborn. Many stillborn babies had major anatomical defects.
“We have very few kids who survived,” Bausch said. The WHO plans to release guidelines related to Ebola and pregnancy this week, Nordstrom said.
Ebola cases have been declining in West Africa for the past three weeks, according to the WHO. There were two confirmed cases of Ebola in the week ending Aug. 2, with one each in Sierra Leone and Guinea. That’s the lowest level of cases since March 2014. Liberia has had no Ebola cases since July.
Almost 2,000 contacts of Ebola patients are under observation in Sierra Leone and Guinea.