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The study, conducted by researchers from control centers and a curious group of Ebola cases in Liberia to a mother who appeared to have had a stealthy, undiagnosed infection for more than 30 years. a year. The bunch was discovered when the 15-year-old woman's son arrived at Monrovia Hospital on November 17, 2015, more than two months after the country was declared free from the disease as a result of the disease. A mbadive epidemic in 2013. The woman's husband and one of their four sons, an eight-year-old, were tested positive for the virus.
After thorough epidemiological monitoring, blood tests, and viral genetic data, the researchers concluded that she contracted an Ebola virus infection in July 2014. At the time, she was pregnant and She was taking care of her brother, a caregiver at a local clinic, who had fallen ill after helping to treat an undiagnosed patient with Ebola symptoms. . His brother's supervisor, his wife, and his seven-year-old son also became ill.
Although the woman's brother died of her infection, he has never been tested for the Ebola virus. The other three (the supervisor, the wife and the brother's son) were tested, and were all positive. Fortunately, they all survived, and their blood samples were kept for future reference.
During this time, the woman became very ill and miscarried in August 2014. But she recovered even without treatment. She soon became pregnant and gave birth to a healthy baby in September 2015 without complications.
In October, she began to feel bad, complaining of fatigue, swelling, and difficulty breathing. She went to a local hospital and was treated for anemia and malaria – there was no suspicion of Ebola at that time, and the country had recently been declared exempt from this. dreaded disease.
But in November, she was 15 years old son got sick with Ebola, giving the coup de sending the bunch. He died of the disease on November 23rd. Her husband and eight-year-old were tested positive for the virus. They survived. She and her new baby, meanwhile, were tested negative and had plenty of protective antibodies against the virus, according to blood test results. His remaining son, the five-year-old boy, escaped the virus
Persistent Plague
CDC researchers scrutinized their contacts and their story to understand how the family came into contact with the Ebola virus. They came back on the woman's contact with her sick brother in 2014. Returning to the stored blood samples, the researchers found that the genetic sequence of the Ebola virus that infected her brother's supervisor in July 2014 was a genetic match to the virus A strain that infected his 15-year-old more than a year later.
Researchers believe that the woman survived an initial Ebola infection after taking care of her brother but that the virus has simply gone to a mysterious phase. Then, after the birth of her baby in 2015, the virus broke out. This, they say, makes sense because pregnancy alleviates maternal immune responses – to avoid attacking the baby – and the immune system reignites shortly after childbirth. This explosion of inflammatory reactions may have triggered a symptomatic illness in the Ebola virus, which then spread to her husband and children.
Such a scenario is not unknown for the Ebola virus. Previous studies have shown that the virus can hide in men's sperm up to 18 months after a victim's recovery. It has also been found in badl secretions and bad milk of asymptomatic women.
In this case, the researchers were unable to determine where Ebola was hiding in the woman's body or how it had spread to her family. But they speculate that the antibodies that she has built to fight the virus have been transferred to her baby through her bad milk, protecting her.
While researchers say that these stealthy cases are rare, they still point to the risk of Ebola. They advocate continued vigilance and monitoring.
The recommendation is particularly relevant, not only in the wake of the latest epidemic in the DRC, but also in the context of the recent Ebola boom. survivors. The 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa (where the woman was infected) was monstrous. More than 28,000 people were infected, leaving 11,000 dead and more than 17,000 survivors. This number of survivors exceeds that of all other Ebola outbreaks combined since the discovery of the disease in 1976.
Health experts must now monitor survivors, but also be careful not to aggravate the stigma of survivors, who are often rejected by their communities for fear that they are still contagious.
The Lancet Infectious Diseases 2018. DOI: 10.1016 / S1473-3099 (18) 30417-1 (About DOIs).
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