12-year-old Kali Hardig from Arkansas, USA, survived a usually fatal infection with an amoeba that destroys the brain. Doctors gave her only 1 percent. chances of survival, report Reuters and ABCNews.
The girl contracted an extremely dangerous protozoan named Naegleria fowleri. This happened when she was swimming in Willow Springs Water Park in Little Rock, Arkansas. The germ most likely entered her body through the nose, then through the snippets of olfactory cells, entered the brain and literally began to devour it.
The girl’s mother, Traci Hardig, brought her to Arkansas Children’s Hospital on July 19 with a high fever, headache and vomiting. The daughter suffered and begged for help – recalled Traci. Doctors quickly realized that the girl was suffering from negleriosis, an infection causing acute inflammation of the encephalitis and meninges. They are caused by a rare protozoan that occurs in warm waters and kills as much as 99 percent. his victims. Most deaths occur after just 72 hours
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, of the 128 cases of this type of amoeba infection in the United States between 1962 and 2012, only one person was saved. One case of a sick person is also known to survive in Mexico. The rest of the patients died, despite the doctors’ efforts. In the US, one of the victims was recently 12-year-old boy Zachary Reyna from Florida, who contracted the so-called primary amoebic meningitis and encephalitis.
Kali Hardig was in critical condition for a month. She was put into a pharmacological coma, but the decisive factor was the early detection of the infection and the use of experimental therapy. It was she who probably saved her life. It consisted in cooling the girl’s body to reduce the swelling caused by the infection. Chemotherapeutic agents usually used in the treatment of breast cancer in women, which destroyed the protozoa, were also used. Tests have shown that they are no longer detected in her body.
The girl began to recover in August. Then she spoke her first words and began to get out of bed. Today he drinks and eats normally. She even got rid of the phobias of swimming. Before leaving the hospital, her mother persuaded her to bathe in a swimming pool under the supervision of three specialists. She had been swimming for over an hour and felt confident enough to even take a dive, said Dr. Esther Tompkins, one of her caretakers.
Kali still has problems with memory and speaking, and requires a speech therapist. Doctors, however, assure that her condition is constantly improving. (PAP)