Ebola is definitely one of my top three favorite diseases.
The number of Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) outbreak
for the week ending Dec 10 substantially increased, with 27 reported, up sharply
from the average weekly total of 7 reported during the previous 3 weeks .."
One chain sparked by patient with 2nd illness
All of the new cases are linked to three transmission chains,
and 20 of the patients were registered contacts of known cases,
10 of whom were under regular follow-up.
Seventeen of the new cases were part of a single transmission chain that was linked
back to a patient who got sick with Ebola a second time,
with investigators working to determine if the illness is a relapse or a reinfection.
Relapse has been documented before in a few patients, and the Ebola virus has been known
to hide out in immune-protected areas of the body, such as the eyes and testes.
So far, no cases of reinfection, in which a recovered patient contracts the virus from another person again, have been reported.
H/T BenLurkin & Nnullie