Ebola May Not Always Have Symptoms

“This study provides further evidence that Ebola, like other viruses, causes a spectrum of clinical manifestations that may include minimally symptomatic infection,” Stanford University anthropology graduate student Eugene Richardson and his collaborators write in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. “The findings also suggest that many episodes of human-to-human transmission of Ebola virus in West Africa may have gone undetected in the recent outbreak.”

The idea that some people infected with Ebola might never develop symptoms is certainly plausible, but, to confirm that, researchers would have to go out and find blood samples that tested positive for the virus. Richardson and his team began their search in Kono District, Sierra Leone. There, they gathered blood samples from 30 people known or strongly suspected to have been sick with the disease, and 132 others who had no contact with Ebola. The team used those samples to validate a standard Ebola blood test, which turned out to be accurate about 97 percent of the time.

SOURCE

If the next outbreak of Ebola spreads worldwide, the main way it could have been stopped just may have gone out the window. With the last outbreak everyone was focusing on symptoms. What else could we focus on?

If Ebola has no symptoms sometimes, what would you do about the next outbreak? If Ebola is detected in a certain place, I would imagine the entire area surrounding that place would need to be quarantined. Without being able to rely on symptoms, I would think you would have to assume that Ebola had spread to everyone in the entire area.

a reply to: Profusion

I had heard, but not sure if true, that Vitamin C was a good deterrent to Ebola. I have taken 2 tablets of vitamin C for years, so I guess if that is true, than I am covered.

If this is true then it can be really hard to contain it. Best we can hope for is cure.

key question is: is an asymptomatic carrier spreading ebola? I always thought that you need direct contact with bodily fluids in order to get Ebola.

So far Ebola isn't spread thru the air. Its not airborne. Unless someone sneezes directly into your face and you inhale the virus, you aren't going to readily catch it by physical contact.

One of the insidious things about Ebola is its long incubation period (up to 21 days), and how early onset symptoms manifest like the flu. Headache, muscle ache, fever, sore throat, etc.

So people can be carriers with the bug and not know it for weeks, even continue normally thinking they only have the flu when they initially come down with it.

originally posted by: whismermill
key question is: is an asymptomatic carrier spreading ebola? I always thought that you need direct contact with bodily fluids in order to get Ebola.

The virus has to get inside you, not just touch your skin.

For instance if you touch something wth ebola virus and then rub your eye...

originally posted by: StarsInDust
a reply to: Profusion

I had heard, but not sure if true, that Vitamin C was a good deterrent to Ebola. I have taken 2 tablets of vitamin C for years, so I guess if that is true, than I am covered.

If simply taking herbal supplements worked, then the outbreak would have been easily contained. Viruses need antibodies to defeat them.

originally posted by: StarsInDust
a reply to: Profusion

I had heard, but not sure if true, that Vitamin C was a good deterrent to Ebola. I have taken 2 tablets of vitamin C for years, so I guess if that is true, than I am covered.

*Eyes narrow* Can't tell if sarcasm or if being serious.

Vitamin C will do you no good at all against ebola, the only good it will do for you is if you decided to live at sea to avoid an ebola outbreak and prevent you from having scurvy.

Also useless for the common cold, and very damaging if taken in a high amount, especially in children and infants.

I thought that I also heard, that once someone seems to be "cured" after having survived Ebola, it can remain in body fluids and be sexually transmitted. Months later.

Yep. Found an article.

Transmission of the Ebola virus from male to female following exposure to infected semen of survivor has been reported in one event and has been suspected in several others. The exact mode of infection (contact, sexual transmission) has not yet been elucidated. In support of the view that Ebola virus can be transmitted via semen, a single instance of heterosexual transmission of the related Marburg filovirus, from a male survivor to a female partner, was reported during an outbreak in 1967. Less probable, but theoretically possible, is female to male transmission.

www.who.int...

I'm sure this happened more recently too.