For the first time, Ebola has been discovered inside the eyes of a patient - months after the virus was gone from his blood.
Since December 2013, the Ebola virus has infected more than 26,000 people in West Africa, according to a case study in The New England Journal of Medicine. Some survivors have reported eye problems, but how often those issues occur is not documented. The CDC has warned that the virus can persist in semen for months, as HNGN previously reported.
A 43-year-old American physician (identified as Dr. Ian Crozier by AP via Yahoo) was diagnosed with Ebola in September while working with the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone. After receiving treatment at Emory University Hospital's special Ebola unit, Crozier was released after a month. Crozier was told he was Ebola-free, since there were no traces of the virus in his blood.
Two months later, Crozier developed very high blood pressure in one of his eyes. The eye was inflamed, causing swelling and could have lead to serious vision problems. Ophthalmologist Dr. Steven Yeh at Emory drained some of the ocular fluid and had it tested for Ebola. The fluid contained the virus, but tears and the tissue surrounding Crozier's eye were clear. "It is reassuring that samples of conjunctivae and tears tested negative for EBOV, a finding that supports previous studies suggesting that patients who recover from EVD pose no risk of spreading the infection through casual contact," study authors wrote.
