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      The etiology of Ebola virus disease-like illnesses in Ebola virusnegative patients from Sierra Leone

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          Abstract

          During the 2014 Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak, less than half of EVD-suspected cases were laboratory tested as Ebola virus (EBOV)-negative, but disease identity remained unknown. In this study we investigated the etiology of EVD-like illnesses in EBOV-negative cases. From November 13, 2014 to March 16, 2015, EVD-suspected patients were admitted to Jui Government Hospital and assessed for EBOV infection by real-time PCR. Of 278 EBOV negative patients, 223 (80.21%), 142 (51.08%), 123 (44.24%), 114 (41.01%), 59 (21.22%), 35 (12.59%), and 12 (4.32%) reported fever, headache, joint pain, fatigue, nausea/vomiting, diarrhea, hemorrhage, respectively. Furthermore, 121 (43.52%), 44 (15.83%), 36 (12.95%), 33 (11.87%), 23 (8.27%), 10 (3.60%) patients were diagnosed as infection with malaria, HIV, Lassa fever, tuberculosis, yellow fever, and pneumonia, respectively. No significant differences in clinical features and symptoms were found between non-EVD and EVD patients. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first to explore the etiology of EVD-like illnesses in uninfected patients in Sierra Leone, highlighting the importance of accurate diagnosis to EVD confirmation.

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          The role of rapid diagnostics in managing Ebola epidemics

          Pierre Nouvellet, Tini Garske, Harriet Mills … (2015)
          Ebola emerged in West Africa around December 2013 and swept through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, giving rise to 27,748 confirmed, probable and suspected cases reported by 29 July 2015. Case diagnoses during the epidemic have relied on polymerase chain reaction-based tests. Owing to limited laboratory capacity and local transport infrastructure, the delays from sample collection to test results being available have often been 2 days or more. Point-of-care rapid diagnostic tests offer the potential to substantially reduce these delays. We review Ebola rapid diagnostic tests approved by the World Health Organization and those currently in development. Such rapid diagnostic tests could allow early triaging of patients, thereby reducing the potential for nosocomial transmission. In addition, despite the lower test accuracy, rapid diagnostic test-based diagnosis may be beneficial in some contexts because of the reduced time spent by uninfected individuals in health-care settings where they may be at increased risk of infection; this also frees up hospital beds. We use mathematical modelling to explore the potential benefits of diagnostic testing strategies involving rapid diagnostic tests alone and in combination with polymerase chain reaction testing. Our analysis indicates that the use of rapid diagnostic tests with sensitivity and specificity comparable with those currently under development always enhances control, whether evaluated at a health-care-unit or population level. If such tests had been available throughout the recent epidemic, we estimate, for Sierra Leone, that their use in combination with confirmatory polymerase chain-reaction testing might have reduced the scale of the epidemic by over a third.
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            Clinical features of patients isolated for suspected Ebola virus disease at Connaught Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone: a retrospective cohort study.

            Marta Lado, Naomi Walker, Peter Baker … (2015)
            The size of the west African Ebola virus disease outbreak led to the urgent establishment of Ebola holding unit facilities for isolation and diagnostic testing of patients with suspected Ebola virus disease. Following the onset of the outbreak in Sierra Leone, patients presenting to Connaught Hospital in Freetown were screened for suspected Ebola virus disease on arrival and, if necessary, were admitted to the on-site Ebola holding unit. Since demand for beds in this unit greatly exceeded capacity, we aimed to improve the selection of patients with suspected Ebola virus disease for admission by identifying presenting clinical characteristics that were predictive of a confirmed diagnosis.
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              Clinical characteristics of 154 patients suspected of having Ebola virus disease in the Ebola holding center of Jui Government Hospital in Sierra Leone during the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

              X-t Yan, J-J Mu, E-De Qin … (2015)
              This article sought to analyze the clinical features of 154 patients suspected of having Ebola virus disease (EVD) in an Ebola holding center in Sierra Leone from October 1 through November 9, 2014. We found that 108 of the 154 patients were confirmed with EVD. Eighty-five had known outcomes. Forty-nine of the 85 patients had been exposed to EVD. The average mortality rate was 60%. The mean interval between the onset of symptoms and hospitalization was 5.8 ± 3.3 days. The mean incubation period was 9.2 ± 6.7 days. Common symptoms of the EVD patients on admission were fatigue (85.2%), anorexia (84.3%), fever (75.9%), and headache (72.2%). Our data showed that the total symptoms of confirmed EVD patients were significantly higher than those of non-EVD patients (9 vs. 5.5; p < 0.001). The likelihood of EVD was 87.6% when a patient presented more than 6 out of 21 symptoms on admission. The survivors were significantly younger than non-survivors (24.0 ± 10.0 years vs. 31.3 ± 15.3 years; p = 0.016). The real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis showed that, in the survivors, the virus load was significantly lower (Ct value: 25.2 ± 4.1 vs. 28.7 ± 5.7; p = 0.002). Multivariate analysis showed that age, fever, and viral load were independent predictors of mortality. Taken together, our data suggested that a cutoff of six symptoms could be used to predict patients with high or low risk of EVD. It seemed that age, fever, and viral load were the main risk factors associated with EVD mortality.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): Oncotarget
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Oncotarget
                Journal ID (publisher-id): Oncotarget
                Journal ID (publisher-id): ImpactJ
                Title: Oncotarget
                Publisher: Impact Journals LLC
                ISSN (Electronic): 1949-2553
                Publication date Collection: 10 May 2016
                Publication date (Electronic): 2 April 2016
                Volume: 7
                Issue: 19
                Pages: 27910-27915
                Affiliations
                1 302 Military Hospital of PLA, Beijing, China
                2 Sierra Leone-China Friendship Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone
                Author notes
                Correspondence to: Hui-Juan Duan, duane8699@ 123456sina.com
                Article
                Publisher ID: 8558
                DOI: 10.18632/oncotarget.8558
                PMC ID: 5053697
                PubMed ID: 27058894
                SO-VID: 2e10e100-5d90-455d-a6c2-e44e253e2c5c
                Copyright © Copyright: © 2016 Li et al.
                License:

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                Date received : 14 January 2016
                Date accepted : 18 March 2016
                Categories
                Subject: Research Paper

                ScienceOpen disciplines: Oncology & Radiotherapy
                Keywords: ebola virus disease (evd),evd-suspected cases,malaria,hiv,lassa fever
                Data availability:
                ScienceOpen disciplines: Oncology & Radiotherapy
                Keywords: ebola virus disease (evd), evd-suspected cases, malaria, hiv, lassa fever

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