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A doctor’s mistaken Ebola test: ‘We were celebrating. . . . Then everything fell apart’

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WASHINGTON POST                                                                                          Nov. 17, 2014

By Kevin Sieff

...The doctors who tended to him in Freetown appeared to be unaware that an early Ebola test — taken within the first three days of the illness — is often inconclusive. In a country where information about the disease continues to move slowly, it was another potentially tragic mistake.

In many cases, a negative test at that stage means nothing because “there aren’t enough copies of the virus in the blood for the test to pick up,” said Ermias Belay, the head of the CDC’s Ebola response team in Sierra Leone.

But M’Briwa and others treated the test as definitive, even though Salia remained feverish and weak. The first results were delivered by a team of Chinese lab technicians who had opened a nearby hospital. (The technicians declined Sunday to speak about Salia’s case.)...

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-doctors-mistaken-ebola-test-we-were-celebrating--then-everything-fell-apart/2014/11/16/946a84da-6dd5-11e4-a2c2-478179fd0489_story.html

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USA TODAY                                                                                               Nov. 17, 2014

By Liz Szabo

The death of physician Martin Salia from Ebola has raised questions about the tests and drugs used in the disease.

Salia, a surgeon who was flown from Sierra Leone to Omaha's Nebraska Medical Center Saturday, had two negative tests for Ebola before testing positive. He arrived in Omaha on the thirteenth day of his illness, said Phil Smith, medical director of the Nebraska hospital's biocontainment unit, one of four around the USA designed for the most dangerous infectious diseases.

Salia is the 10th person with Ebola treated in the USA. While all eight Americans have survived, both patients from Africa -- including Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan -- have died....

Alhough Ebola tests are generally considered accurate, they may produce false negative results early in a person's infection, when levels of the virus are still low, says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The test isn't sensitive enough to detect very small amounts of virus.

That's why people who suspect they could have Ebola -- because they have symptoms and may have been exposed to the virus -- should be retested again in 48 to 72 hours, Fauci says.

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/17/ebold-patient-nebraska/19171611/

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