Many previous medical studies assumed all Ebola victims showed symptoms of the disease. A new study from researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine identified 14 new individuals who had the Ebola virus with almost no symptoms in a Sierra Leone village.
Using the ELISA assay technique to determine the presence of antibodies, researchers discovered that the villagers from Suduku in Sierra Leone, who had previously shown no symptoms of Ebola, were at one point infected with it.
This new research confirms scientists’ suspicions that Ebola does not cause uniformly severe and often fatal disease, and some infected may not even show signs of illness. The Stanford University findings also suggest that Ebola was even more widespread in certain regions than previously thought. Based on their results, the study’s authors calculated the prevalence of infection of Ebola with minimum symptoms to be 25 percent (34 initial infections+ 14 newly infected).
"The study corroborates previous evidence that Ebola is like most other viruses in that it causes a spectrum of manifestations, including minimally symptomatic infection," Gene Richardson M.D. from Stanford said. "It also means a significant portion of transmission events may have gone undetected during the outbreak. This shows there was a lot more human-to-human transmission than we thought."
Prevalence and Meaning
The researchers from Stanford worked within the village of Suduku to care for Ebola patients in late 2014 and early 2015. In a village of about 900 members, there were 34 cases of Ebola resulting in 28 deaths.
The researchers then came back to the village after the epidemic to determine how many people were asymptomatic but still were infected with Ebola. Of the 14 infected, 12 said they had no symptoms of Ebola, while the other two recalled having a fever.
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| The CDC warns of highly visible symptoms of Ebola, but new research suggests that these symptoms do not always appear. Source: cdc.gov |
Conclusion
While this information confirms scientists’ suspicions that people can become infected with Ebola and asymptomatic, much is still now known. It’s unclear whether these villagers could pass on the disease, as they did not have active Ebola symptoms.
Ebola can survive for months in semen and other bodily secretions, waiting to be transmitting through sexual contact. Scientists must research Ebola and its symptoms more, discovering its weakness and how to protect people in future epidemics.
This study brings us closer to a better understanding of a devastating disease that has already killed tens of thousands of people and still affects many. Studying the aftereffects in villages like Suduku in Sierra Leone is an important step in understanding the disease better.
