Research describes blood disorders and their impact on Ebola patient outcomes

Announcing a new article publication for Zoonoses journal. Hematologic disorders occur frequently in patients with Ebola virus disease (EVD) and are characterized by one or several abnormalities in blood cells, including hemostasis, which is poorly documented. This study described the hematologic abnormalities of Ebola patients and the impact on the outcomes of patients who were admitted with EVD.

This was a retrospective observational study of patients recruited from 1 February 2019 to 25 June 2020 from Ebola Treatment Centers in Butembo and Katwa. Clinical and hemogram parameters at the time of admission and outcomes were collected. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were performed with a significance level of 0.05. The analyses were carried out using Rstudio software.

Among 299 patients hospitalized during the study period, only 129 were included in the analysis. The mean age was 29.9 ± 18.6 years with a female-to-male ratio of 1.2. Only 13 patients (10 %) had been vaccinated against the Ebolazaire virus. The hematologic abnormalities included anemia (55.8%), hyperleukocytosis (36.4%), leukopenia (3.1%), thrombopenia (32.6%), and thrombocytosis (30.2%).

Only anemia was statistically significantly correlated with increased viral load. Anemia (OR, 4.07; 95% CI, 1.59-11.3) was shown to be an independent risk factor for mortality in patients with EVD based on multivariate analysis. EVD is responsible for major hematologic abnormalities that contribute to increased patient mortality.