'Infrequent' Feature

In a clinical difference from previous Ebola outbreaks, around 90% of patients testing positive for Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD) have had no haemorrhagic signs or bleeding at presentation, according to a preliminary study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The bleeding rate observed among laboratory confirmed cases in the study was no higher than in patients with suspected BVD who tested negative (10.4% vs 10.3%), reported Placide Mbala-Kingebeni, PhD, of the National Institute of Biomedical Research in Kinshasa. According to the CDC, unexplained bleeding is present in roughly 40% of Ebola cases. In one study specific to BVD involving a 2007 outbreak, researchers reported that 54% of laboratory-confirmed cases had some kind of bleeding. It has also now been reported that BVD has spread to a fourth province of DRC, and that 300 people who have tested positive are unaccounted for.