Viral haemorrhagic fevers (e.g. Ebola)

Rare, severe, often fatal tropical infections — Ebola and Marburg (filoviruses), Lassa fever (arenavirus), Hantavirus, Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever, and others. Quarantinable / notifiable, with strict infection-control implications.

Clinical features

• Typically begin with a flu-like illness and GI symptoms, progressing (in severe cases) to thrombocytopenia, anaemia, DIC, bleeding, shock and frank haemorrhage.
• Hantavirus tends to cause a respiratory syndrome (cough → respiratory failure) or a renal syndrome, depending on the strain.

Management

Consider in a febrile returned traveller from an outbreak area (see Illness in returned traveller). Isolate immediately and seek urgent expert/public-health help — do not delay notification. Care is largely supportive in a high-containment setting. Ebola vaccines (rVSV-ZEBOV / Ervebo) are now available for outbreak response and at-risk healthcare workers, and monoclonal-antibody therapies (e.g. Inmazeb, Ebanga) improve survival in Zaire ebolavirus disease — this doesn’t change the acute GP recognition/isolation approach.