2023-05-31 09:29:02
A three-year-old boy died from renewed herpes virus infection. The toddler suffered an encephalitis. His parents are now warning of the consequences and are demanding standard tests in the medical field.
Human herpesvirus 6B (HHV-6B) can remain in the body after infection. About 70 percent of children under the age of three become infected with the pathogen and can develop exanthema subitem, also known as roseola. Healthy people don’t actually have to fear reinfection because the immune system protects the body from reinfection. But for people with a weakened immune system, another infection can even be fatal. The parents of a three-year-old boy had to experience this.
Herpesvirus6B (HHV-6B): Young (3) died after reinfection
As reported by “The Sun”, among others, the three-year-old boy received a transplant. As a result, he also lacked T-cells in his blood, which caused the toddler to have the Virus could infect. “Raffy didn’t have an immune system. He didn’t have anything to fight off the virus. It spread from his blood to his organs and became very dangerous,” explained his mother Imogen James. After the transplant, he got worse. He suffered from ulcerative colitis, bleeding from the intestine, external ulcers, mouth sores, inflammation of the pancreas, seizures and a blood clot. There was also bleeding between his brain and the top of his skull. He died in Great Ormond Street Hospital in March 2023 after contracting encephalitis.
Also read: She only had a rash at first! Doctors have to remove the tongue almost completely
Parents are calling for mandatory herpes testing for transplant patients
His parents, meanwhile, have launched the “Red Duck” campaign to lobby for the National Health Service NHS to add HHV-6B to the list of standard weekly virus tests performed on transplant patients. In the case of her son, that was not done. “HHV-6B is the most common reactivated form of herpesvirus after a transplant and I can’t understand why they don’t test for it. It’s frustrating,” said Imogen James. The campaign helps her and her family to cope with the grief. “We’ve found that channeling our grief into something positive gives us comfort – where we can still keep talking about Raffy and telling his story to prevent the same thing from happening to someone else.
A spokesman for the hospital said many of the children treated there have “complex and rare diseases, but no matter how complicated their treatment, we always strive to make things right for the children and their families.” They learn from each individual case and offer their condolences to the family. The clinic would also adhere to current European Conference on Leukemia Infection (ECIL) guidelines.
follow News.de already at Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube? Here you will find the latest news, the latest videos and the direct line to the editors.
bos/bua/news.de
#Herpesvirus #Parents #warn #deadly #virus #Boy #died #reinfection