Human infection due to Ebola virus, subtype Cote d'Ivoire: Clinical and biologic presentation

In November 1994 after 15 years of epidemiologic silence, Ebola virus reeme rged in Africa and, for the first time, in West Africa. In Cote d'Ivoire, a 34-year-old female ethologist was infected while conducting a necropsy on a wild chimpanzee. Eight days later, the patient developed a syndrome that did not respond to antimalarial drugs and was characterized by high fever, headache, chills, myalgia, and cough. The patient had abdominal pain. diarr hea, vomiting, and a macular rash, and was repatriated to Switzerland. The patient suffered from prostration and weight loss but recovered without seq uelae. Laboratory findings included aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase activity highly elevated, thrombocytopenia, lymphopenia, a nd, subsequently, neutrophilia. A new subtype of Ebola was isolated from th e patient's blood on days 4 and 8. No serologic conversion was detected amo ng contact persons in Cote d'Ivoire (n = 22) or Switzerland (n = 52), sugge sting that infection-control precautions were satisfactory.