Medical first: Rabies case treated without vaccination
Press Trust of India Posted online: Thursday, November 25, 2004 at 1202 hours IST
Chicago, November 25: A teenage girl has become the first known rabies victim to survive the disease without the benefit of a rabies vaccination, her doctors said.
Doctors at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin broke the news of the medical first on Wednesday, crediting an experimental treatment that they crafted when the sick teenager showed up at the hospital with an advanced case of the disease.
Jeanna Giese, 15, contracted the deadly virus when she was bitten by an infected bat at a church on September 12 and was admitted to hospital a month later, according to hospital officials.
Doctors were able to diagnose her condition pretty quickly based on her symptoms -- periods of unconsciousness, double vision, slurred speech and weakness in her left arm -- and a medical history.
The disease had progressed to a point where immunisation was not an option, so a team of eight specialists decided to try something new: coma-inducing drugs to protect the teenager's brain and a cocktail of drugs to protect her nervous system and boost her immune system.
The goal was to protect her brain while the virus ran its course through her body, said Rodney Willoughby, the paediatric infectious disease physician who headed the care team.
Previous research had indicated that brain dysfunction was the more immediate cause of death in rabies cases, rather than the virus itself.
Within an hour Giese was in a drug-induced coma and within three days, Giese was on a four-drug cocktail, composed of two anti-virals and two anaesthetics.
After a week of treatment, tests showed that Giese's immune system was creating antibodies to fight off the virus. As the virus subsided, the coma-inducing drugs were diminished to allow her to regain consciousness.
Lab tests by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia indicate that the teenager "has cleared the rabies infection," said Willoughby.
"Jeanna is clearly alert and recognises her parents," he said.
The teenager is physically weak but regaining her strength and voice after weeks of mechanical ventilation, he added.
The doctors at children's hospital said they will send the groundbreaking medical protocol to the CDC, and then share it with the medical community in the following weeks.
