In the United States, Iowa, a 4-year-old girl lost her sight after suffering from an acute flu. She hadn’t been vaccinated this season.
Symptoms started a little before Christmas, December 19, 2019. Jade DeLucia, a 4-year-old American girl, then had a slight fever, which her parents brought down with medication. “She ran everywhere, had fun, ate normally, asked for a snack. We thought it was just a small virus, and that she would recover quickly, “says her mother, Amanda Phillips. But his condition is getting worse. On Christmas Eve, her parents find her unconscious in her bed: “She was lying in bed and did not move. Her eyes were turned over and she didn’t wake up, ”says her mother. She was rushed to the University of Iowa Stead Children’s Hospital, 130 km from her home.
Temporary blindness?
The diagnosis falls: the little girl suffers from encephalopathy, a known complication of the flu affecting the brain. “They told us that she had significant brain damage and that our child may never wake up,” said the mother. A few days later, on December 31, a new diagnosis was made. Acute necrotizing encephalopathy, an acute inflammation of the brain resulting from a viral infection. However, like a miracle, the little girl wakes up on 1st January.
But very quickly the doctors noticed that something was wrong. Indeed, the little girl does not look at the objects and the movements happening around her. The part of her brain that manages vision is actually severely damaged: “We don’t know if she will regain vision. In about three to six months, we will know. Whatever her recovery after six months, it will probably be the final result, ”says Theresa Czech, the neuro-pediatrician. Doctors say Jade may also “have cognitive or developmental problems such as learning disabilities.”
Vaccinated eight months earlier
The girl’s parents were far from imagining that their child might have contracted the flu; the little girl having been vaccinated in March. They thought the injection was still working and that there was no point in giving her another injection. But, the virus changing every year, the vaccine is not the same from one season to another.
In the United States, in 2019, 32 children died from the flu, including 21 from influenza B, the virus that little Jade contracted.
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