Classification of reactive arthritides.

Letters No special nursing precautions were taken either during the hospitalization or after the death, and the body was transferred to Kikwit to be buried. On April 30, another nun who took care of the index patient during the night of April 23 became ill with fever, headache, and myalgia. Over the next few days, the second patient had a clinical picture identical to that of the index patient, including high fever, severe asthenia, vomiting, hiccups, and diarrhea. On May 5, epistaxis and coagulation abnormalities developed, followed by other clinical signs of the hemorrhagic syndrome. The second patient was transferred to Kikwit General Hospital, where she died 6 days later. A laboratory confirmation of Ebola hemorrhagic fever was made on a blood specimen collected on May 5 and sent to Special Pathogens Branch (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA). These cases of unrecognized Ebola hemor-rhagic fever were part of the hospital outbreak that precipitated and mobilized international community efforts (2). Retrospectively, the clinical symptoms observed were typical of Ebola hemorrhagic fever (3,4) and were described again in subsequent patients during this outbreak (5). In tropical Africa, the presence of hemorrhagic symptoms in the course of a febrile illness should raise the possibility of one of the viral hemorrhagic fever diseases. In viral hemorrhagic fevers, maculopapular rash is constantly observed only in filovirus disease. Typically, the clinical laboratory findings include an early lymphopenia and marked thrombocytopenia. Containment and barrier nursing procedures should be initiated until the diagnosis of viral hemorrhagic fever can be ruled out. The index patient described here was the third patient transferred from Kikwit General Hospital in less than 1 month to die of a hemorrhagic illness after a few days of an unexplained febrile syndrome. Two patients were health-care workers in Kikwit General Hospital. This cluster of hemorrhagic illness and possible human-to-human transmission, particularly among hospital staff, was (and should always be) sufficient to suspect a viral hemorrhagic fever. The laboratory confirmation of this presumptive diagnosis was the clenching factor in the multinational effort in Kikwit. To the Editor: We read with interest J.A. Lindsay's article on sequelae of foodborne disease (1). However, we believe that there are errors in the classification of the reactive arthritides. Lindsay states that ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a " rheumatoid inflammation of synovial joints and entheses within and distal to the spine. " Although not the primary focus of …