Post Ebola neurological symptom- sounds like PVFS/ME/CFS

[Hutan]

Ebola followed by severe ME would seem to be one of worst illnesses imaginable.

Indeed. Even Ebola followed by mild ME would be horrendous.

The Ebola survivors have usually lost most of their family members to the disease. Their possessions, their houses will have been burnt. There is a stigma to having had Ebola; others in the community often treat them like lepers. They live in countries with overburdened health systems and little social welfare.

To have the symptoms of ME on top of all of that and so to be unable to work would be a daily nightmare.

Ebola research has funding.

I certainly hope so, and that some of that goes to investigating the post-Ebola symptoms.

A study that compared asymptomatic Ebola survivors to symptomatic Ebola survivors would make a lot more sense than throwing an asymptomatic Lyme comparison group into a study on ME/CFS. If there are US funds for Ebola investigations, maybe NIH could repeat much of the planned ME/CFS study with Ebola survivors.

 

[Kati]

The thing about Ebola and more currently Zika virus is that both diseases have a very clear public health concern which could infect anybody visiting these countries affected. With the Olympic games being hosted in Bresil this summer, the chances that visitors and athletes could be exposed to Zika and transmit the disease (there has been a few cases of sexual transmission already).

Ebola and Zika have quickly become center of media attention which also brings attention to politicians. It then 'looks good' for countries to give money for research, push for treatments and vaccines. We can only hope that we do not get pushed further back in the priority lists of health care research.

 

[Hutan]

We can only hope that we do not get pushed further back in the priority lists of health care research.

In all likelihood, the majority of the 17,000 survivors of this latest outbreak of Ebola are actually part of 'us'. Rather than a threat to our funding, I think we should be seeing this as an opportunity to normalise the view that viral infections can cause the [edit: subsequent] symptoms that characterise ME/CFS. It could help bring in more good researchers to study our illness.

Hopefully organisations representing ME/CFS patients will campaign for some of the Ebola research dollars to be used to investigate the post-Ebola symptoms.

From the article that @Yogi posted:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...alth-problems-new-study-reveals-a6894696.html

The study, by the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, examined 82 survivors in Liberia and found that most had some form of "neurologic abnormality" at least six months after they became infected.

Around two thirds of the group, which had an average age of 35, had body weakness, while half suffered headaches and memory loss.

 

[Hutan]

From Cort's recent blog
http://www.cortjohnson.org/blog/2016/03/10/nih-long-term-effort-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/

What was Nath doing there? Examining post-Ebola patients with neurological problems. Studying post-infectious illness, after all, is what Nath does. That’s why he’s interested in ME/CFS.

Could he compare post-Ebola and ME/CFS blood samples? (I can see the headlines “ME/CFS Found Similar to Post-Ebola Virus Syndrome”. THAT would rock everybody’s world.) Nath agreed that would be a fascinating study and that similarities exist between the two disease but that biological specimens – considered potentially infectious material – cannot be taken, at this point, out of the country.

So that's Nath in Liberia doing the study with the 82 Ebola survivors. That bodes really well for us I think.

 

[wastwater]

I saw something about zika being patented by a company and first isolated in monkeys