Ebola ravaged countries like Sierra Leone, needs Ophthalmologists, eye doctors for Epidemic’s Survivors

Mo is an Ebola survivor who is slowly going blind. (Emily Baumgaertner)

Mo scratches at his eyes, his burning photophobia triggered in the sunlight. My instinct is to bat his hand away, to warn him, “You’ll scratch your cornea!”, but I bite my tongue. A corneal abrasion would hardly exacerbate the fact that he is already going blind.

In the aftermath of the epidemic, almost half of over 15,000 West African Ebola survivors have exhibited new ophthalmic symptoms that, left untreated, can lead to severe uveitis (inflammation of the eye), cataracts, and blindness. In Sierra Leone, where an already-weak health system has been leveled by the outbreak, ophthalmological capacity is dismal—the country of 6 million people has just three ophthalmologists. And the nightmare is magnified by a frightening curveball: the possibility that live Ebola virus could be replicating in the eyes of discharged Ebola survivors, pleading to be disrupted by instruments and released back into the population.

As long as that question goes unanswered, the eyes of Ebola survivors are considered inoperable. Patients who need surgery are told to go home, to wait, until researchers confirm whether their eyes are viral landmines. Meanwhile, they’re going blind.

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