Symptomless infection with Ebola virus

Abstract

Ebola virus infection is largely restricted to central Africa (Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan) and is associated with an overwhelming haemorrhagic fever characterised by pyrexia, headache, joint and muscle pains, vomiting and diarrhoea, conjunctivitis, and bleeding. The haemorrhage of Ebola infection seems to be caused by adhesion of viral particles to the endothelial lining of blood vessels via a specialised glycoprotein,1 the result being infection of, replication in, and damage to, the endothelial cells.2 The disease is usually fatal.3