A doctor who was nearly killed by the Ebola virus faced a shocking discovery when an eye problem turned out to be an infection, an Ebola infection. The symptoms included blurry vision, a burning sensation and changes in eye color.
Doctor Ian Crozier first contracted the virus while working in Sierra Leone during the height of the Ebola outbreak. He struggled for his life at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and narrowly beat the disease after 12 days on a ventilator and 24 days in dialysis according to ABC News. Nevertheless, Dr. Crozier’s nightmare wasn’t over.
Crozier started noticing the symptoms in his left eye. CNN reports he initially thought it was “an immune-related Ebola complication,” but not a living virus.
The doctor also told CNN‘s Anderson Cooper that he had more important things to worry about right after the infection.
“There were lots of things sort of higher on the food chain. I was struggling to learn to walk again.”
After roughly two months of worsening eye health, Crozier was back in Emory. By that time, the condition was getting so serious that his normally blue eyes had changed into a greenish hue. Doctors stuck a needle in his eye and found the Ebola virus was still living in his eye fluids.
Crozier explained to the New York Times it came as quite a shock.
“It felt almost personal that the virus could be in my eye without me knowing it.”
The doctor was given steroids and an antiviral agent, and his condition eventually improved. Unfortunately for doctors studying the issue, they’re still not sure if it was the treatment or Crozier’s own immune system that eliminated the virus.
The eye is largely cut-off from the immune system with barriers that aren’t well understood. The shielding, known as immune privilege, is meant to prevent inflammation that could damage vision, but it also leads to the inner eye becoming a sanctuary for viruses. Doctors speculate immune privilege might explain why Ebola can linger in the eye long after the virus is eliminated from the patient’s bodily fluids.
Doctor Crozier’s case is now the subject of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The doctors say that the virus was not present in Crozier’s tears, meaning that he could not have spread the disease through casual contact. Although little was known about Ebola’s ability to survive in a victim’s eye, there are numerous cases of post-Ebola patients complaining about sight issues.
Crozier told CNN, “You can imagine an Ebola survivor who’s already been through their own personal hell.”
“And as they emerge from that place, to then in a sense face the tragedy of going blind; it’s a story that we must pay attention.”
Roughly 15,000 thousand of the 25,000 Ebola patients survived the virus during the huge outbreak last year. Now, researchers will have to study the aftereffects of the deadly disease, including Dr. Crozier, who is already back in Africa.
[Image Credit: Getty Images]
Doctor Discovers Ebola Virus Living In His Eye Fluid Months After Infection is an article from: The Inquisitr News
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