In March, a different case of Ebola virus disease (EVD) was reported, where a Liberian woman manifested symptoms after having unsafe sex with a male survivor. Since then, speculations have floated up, and that survivors may possibly still have harmful traces of Ebola even long after they were cleared of the virus.
Just recently, a prelimary study has supported that possibility. A team from the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recruited a total of 93 male Ebola survivors who agreed to undergo regular testing, NBC reports.
After a follow-up test (made three months after survivors first showed symptoms), researchers were able to note nine men who still have some Ebola virus deposits in their seminal fluids. Four to six months later, 65 percent still had some residue of the virus, and after nine months, about 26 percent of them. As to why not all survivors were positive, the research team has yet to find out.
But according to the previous analysis made in the Liberian couple this year, the sequences of the man's and woman's virus were identical, suggesting that there was a sexual transmission. Against to that idea, researchers recognized the possibility of perhaps other infected individual to whom the woman had a direct contact transmitted the virus to her. That is highly likely as she reportedly contracted the virus a month after Liberia was announced Ebola-free.
What the researchers have at present is that they are not sure whether the remains of Ebola found in the survivors are active, and whether sexual transmission could be possible. Researchers just said that these cases are pretty not common. There are more than 17,000 survivors of EVD in West Africa, and yet fewer than 20 suspected sexually transmitted infections have been reported, Armand Sprecher, M.D. M.P.H., who was not part of the research, writes in NEJM.
There is, therefore, no need for people to keep distance from Ebola survivors, or for the survivors to feel guilty of becoming a threat to anyone. At least for now, this significant breakthrough adds to our knowledge about this virus, and soon enough, scientists will be able to develop precautionary measures in order to better protect people and prevent outbreaks.
The study appears in the New England Journal of Medicine.
