Teenager Is the Second to Survive Rabies, Says Ministry

01/11/2018 - 10h07

A 14-year-old teenager is now considered the second patient in Brazil to survive after being contaminated with rabies, a disease whose death rate is nearly 100%.

Brazil's Ministry of Health, however, says that more data are needed to confirm if he was cured. The other case occurred in the state of Pernambuco in 2008.

The ministry said that "it has not received all the patient's neurologic reports yet, thus it cannot evaluate what the recovery conditions and prognostic are."

The Health Department of the state of Amazonas says that the case indicates a "clinical cure," as the patient left the Intensive Care Unit and appears to be recovering. The patient is likely to undergo exams in the next days to confirm whether the virus was, in fact, eliminated.

If his full recovery is confirmed, the teenager, who lives in Barcelos (AM), could become the fifth case in the world of a patient who was cured after being contaminated with rabies. There were two cases in the U.S. - in 2004 and 2011 - and another in Colombia in 2008.

The disease is caused by a virus found in mammals and is transmitted mainly through infected animals' bites. The symptoms appear after two to four days, a period when the infection begins to advance causing fever and fever dreams, involuntary spasms and convulsion, among others.

The ministry says that, after this period, patients normally die after five to seven days.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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	Pascual Soriano/AFP
	The disease is caused by a virus found in mammals and is transmitted mainly through infected animals' bites