ABSTRACT
We report on an Ebola virus disease (EVD) survivor who showed Ebola virus in seminal fluid 531 days after onset of disease. The persisting virus was sexually transmitted in February 2016, about 470 days after onset of symptoms, and caused a new cluster of EVD in Guinea and Liberia.
Subject(s)
Disease Outbreaks , Ebolavirus/genetics , Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola , Semen/virology , Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Viral , Ebolavirus/isolation & purification , Female , Guinea , Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola/transmission , Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola/virology , Humans , Male , Polymerase Chain Reaction , RNA, Viral/analysis , Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Viral/transmission , Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Viral/virology , SurvivorsABSTRACT
To strengthen the laboratory diagnostic capacity for Ebola virus disease (EVD) in the remote areas of Guinea, we deployed a mobile field laboratory and implemented reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) for postmortem testing. We tested 896 oral swab specimens and 21 serum samples, using both RT-LAMP and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Neither test yielded a positive result, and the results from RT-LAMP and RT-PCR were consistent. More than 95% of the samples were tested within 2 days of sample collection. These results highlight the usefulness of the RT-LAMP assay as an EVD diagnostic testing method in the field or remote areas.
