Maintain Standard Precautions and Other Advice for Managing Ebola Virus Survivors, from CDC

Providers should maintain standard precautions and correct waste management procedures, and determine what precautionary steps need to be taken when coming into contact with bodily fluid from immunologically protected sites, while treating survivors of Ebola virus disease (EVD), said an interim guidance released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Nine of the 11 patients treated for Ebola in the United States in 2014 and 2015 survived, and it is also possible that EVD survivors from West Africa will seek treatment in the United States. CDC said that data on the pathogenesis of sequelae in EVD survivors are limited, but that in most cases persons who have recovered completely do not experience a relapse. However, survivors can experience complications, including "non-specific fatigue, joint pain, muscle aches, headaches, suppurative parotitis, pericarditis, orchitis, sexual dysfunction, hair loss, vision loss (including uveitis and permanent blindness), hearing loss, tinnitus, paresthesia or dysesthesia, memory loss, insomnia, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder."