Ebola exposure, illness experience, and Ebola antibody prevalence in international responders to the West African Ebola epidemic 2014-2016: A cross-sectional study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Healthcare and other front-line workers are at particular risk of infection with Ebola virus (EBOV). Despite the large-scale deployment of international responders, few cases of Ebola virus disease have been diagnosed in this group. Since asymptomatic or pauci-symptomatic infection has been described, it is plausible that infections have occurred in healthcare workers but have escaped being diagnosed. We aimed to assess the prevalence of asymptomatic or pauci-symptomatic infection, and of exposure events, among returned responders to the West African Ebola epidemic 2014-2016.

Methods and findings

We used snowball sampling to identify responders who had returned to the UK or Ireland, and used an online consent and questionnaire to determine their exposure to EBOV a

SUBMITTER: Houlihan CF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5433702 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature