Ebola’s Effects on the Eye

FLICKR, CDCAnother clinician who contracted Ebola while treating patients in Liberia—and who was successfully treated for the disease in the U.S.—has presented with virus-related vision and other eye issues, investigators from the University of Massachusetts Medical School reported in Emerging Infectious Diseases last week (November 22). Like physician Ian Crozier, doctor Richard Sacra experienced temporary loss of vision among other ocular symptoms once he was deemed Ebola-free.

That Ebola survivors may show symptoms related to the infection once they’ve cleared the virus highlights one way the pathogen can evade immune detection in certain parts of the body. “As there are more Ebola survivors, we’re probably going to see a significant amount of ocular complications,” study coauthor Olga Cerón of the University of Massachusetts Medical School told Live Science. “If you catch [the problems] early on, you can really reverse and potentially prevent these vision complications.”