A seven-year-old girl is the latest person to contract a gruesome flesh eating virus which is being spread throughout Melbourne by mosquitoes at an alarming rate.
Mia Spilman spent the weekend in the Mornington Peninsular with her family when she got a painful mosquito bite on her right calf.
It took four days in hospital, at least eight rounds of antibiotics and three months in total before doctors diagnosed her with mycobacterium, known as Buruli ulcers.
Her mother Amalia says the numerous doctors she and her daughter saw didn’t ask the right questions about the bite, which grew bigger and more painful by the day.
‘We could have got her diagnosed much sooner if they had just asked the right questions,’ she said.
Since her diagnosis, Mia has been prescribed three rounds of antibiotics, lasting a month each. If they are ineffective, doctors will consider surgery.
The antibiotics Mia has been prescribed, clarithromycin and rifampicin are used to treat tuberculosis and have nasty side effects, which can include nausea, skin rashes, red bodily fluids and in some cases, jaundice.
In some cases, amputation is required to stop the spreading of the bacteria – something that has not been far from her mother’s mind.
‘Once we found out what it was it crossed my mind that she could lose a limb and I wondered if it had gone to the bone,’ she said.
(Sourced from agencies, Feature image courtesy:juneauempire.com)
