Many Ebola patients in Africa could be saved if they were infused with salts and fluids, said Professor Anders Perner of Copenhagen University Hospital, Rigshospitalet, in an article in the Lancet.
“It has taken us too long to acknowledge that we could save a lot of lives in West Africa by very simple means,” says Perner, who specializes in intravenous treatments with fluids at the Intensive Therapy Clinic at Rigshospitalet. Perner believes that many Ebola patients die because the virus drains them of fluids and salts.
“When you read the descriptions of Ebola patients’ symptoms, they indicate that patients suffer from severe diarrhea and vomiting. They lose a total of up to 10 liters of fluid every 24 hours,” he says. Blood samples also indicate that patients’ salt and fluid levels drop to to a point normally considered life-threatening, Perner explains.
Ebola patients who come to the West where they receive intravenous treatments face a substantially lower mortality rate than patients treated in West Africa, Perner notes.
