[PA Engineer]

If anyone ends up getting Ebola back after they tested to have been cleared from it, that's when I'd get real cautious.

There actually is some troubling information coming out now:

This is from the PFIF and is a post from a webcast answer on Medline.

Reinfection, Reemergence Unknown

Larry Hand October 23, 2014

In response to a question from a webcast participant, experts discussed the possibilities of reinfection and reemergence of disease after initial clearance.

"We know that patients who have survived do have specific antibodies in their blood," said Armand Sprecher, MD, from Médecins Sans Frontières. "Of course, what we don't know is the threshold at which antibodies give you a surrogate marker of protection. It's possible we may gather that over the course of this epidemic, as we hopefully move toward vaccination."

Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, from Partners in Health, Boston, Massachusetts, added, "In Monrovia, a couple of children under 5 who had negative [polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) after treatment] then returned some weeks later with positive PCR.

"These are children who had a normal course of illness...and had a clinical recovery, and both of these children became ill in a day or two," Dr Sprecher continued. "They came back and were found to be febrile and [PCR-]positive again. Both children had some neurologic signs. The feeling amongst the virologists is...the virus gets into some parts of the body with immunologic protection, like the central nervous system. The immune response clears the virus from the periphery, the patient has a clinical recovery, while the viral infection progresses in the [central nervous system] and eventually returns and reemerges as a renewed positivity. At least one of the children became negative again."

[pieceofthepuzzle]

The implications of ‘reinfection’ in someone who has circulating antibodies are scary, and suggest that it might be harder than we think to create a viable vaccine. This is an ‘enveloped’ (membrane coated) virus, as HIV is enveloped, and unless a vaccine is against one of the proteins embedded in the envelope it might not be effective. Making it even more of a problem is that the major viral protein in the envelope is glycosylated (coated with sugar molecules) and this makes it harder to develop antibodies against.

This is a scary virus.

[Selene]

“has a clinical recovery, while the viral infection progresses in the [central nervous system] and eventually returns and reemerges as a renewed positivity.”

That could happen to Mukpo. He looked and sounded very ill when they released him after what - 10 days. Should have kept him at least another week.

[Shelayne]

"These are children who had a normal course of illness...and had a clinical recovery, and both of these children became ill in a day or two," Dr Sprecher continued. "They came back and were found to be febrile and [PCR-]positive again. Both children had some neurologic signs. The feeling amongst the virologists is...the virus gets into some parts of the body with immunologic protection, like the central nervous system. The immune response clears the virus from the periphery, the patient has a clinical recovery, while the viral infection progresses in the [central nervous system] and eventually returns and reemerges as a renewed positivity. At least one of the children became negative again.

O.M.G.

Clearly there are way too many unknowns with this virus.