Diarrhea Can Be an Important Clinical Presentation of 2014 Western Africa Ebola Virus Infection

Dear Editor-in-Chief

The present global consideration is on the recent outbreak of 2014 Western Ebola virus in West Africa (1 – 3). This viral hemorrhagic fever wide spreads to several countries in West Africa and remote countries (1 - 3). With high death rate, the disease is presently on the list of public health threatens. The main problem for management of the infection is the limited knowledge on its clinical presentation.

An interesting concern is on the gastroenterology presentation of this new disease. In fact, some new viral diseases such as atypical influenza virus infection can have an important clinical presentation as diarrhea (4). Here, the authors try to summarize on the magnitude of diarrhea in clinical presentation of this new disease. From information reported from 15 confirmed cases from Guinea (1 – 3, 5), 73.3% of the cases primarily present with diarrhea. This rate is considerable high comparing to those observed in other viral hemorrhagic disease such as dengue (rate of diarrhea at presentation < 5% (6).

This calls for the attention that it is necessary to think about new Ebola disease in any febrile illness patient with diarrhea who has history of visiting to outbreak area.