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A 4-year-old Iowa girls tragic bout with the flu should remind everyone why getting vaccinated is so important. Her family says that the unvaccinated girls infection led to serious neurological complications that have left her blind, perhaps permanently.

According to CNN, Jade DeLucia became sick with the flu right before Christmas. Though DeLucia appeared to have little more than a mild fever at first, her parents found her unresponsive one morning, prompting a trip to a local hospital.

Once there, she experienced a seizure, which necessitated an emergency airlift to another hospital 80 miles away in Iowa City. Doctors there eventually confirmed that the flu had made its way to the girls brain, causing a rare but well-known complication of flu called encephalopathy. DeLucia would spend over a week in the intensive care unit, fully in a coma.

Thankfully, during the first week of January, DeLucia woke up and steadily regained her ability to eat and talk. But her vision didnt return, despite her eyes being perfectly fine. The infection had damaged the areas of her brain that helped her see, and its unclear whether she ever will see again. She may also develop other lingering problems, such as learning or cognitive difficulties, her neurologist told CNN.

It affected the part of her brain that perceives sight, and we dont know if shes going to get her vision back, Theresa Czech, a neurologist who treated DeLucia at the University of Iowa Stead Family Childrens Hospital, told CNN. In about three to six months from now well know. Whatever recovery she has at six months, thats likely all shes going to get.

According to DeLucias family, she had gotten vaccinated for the flu last March. But they mistakenly believed that the vaccine would protect her for an entire year. In reality, an annual flu shot only provides some protection against the strains of flu encountered during the upcoming, current, or most recent winter season.

The vaccine doesnt completely eliminate the risk of contracting the fluon average, its about 40 to 60 percent effective at preventing the flu, largely depending on whether scientists havedone a good job at predicting the strains in circulation that season. But even when it doesnt fully work, it still greatly reduces the odds of someone developing the sort of serious, life-threatening complications that DeLucia encountered.

The family hopes that their story can encourage more people to get vaccinated.

If I can stop one child from getting sick, thats what I want to do, Amanda Phillips, Jade DeLucias mother, told CNN. Its terrible to see your child suffer like this.

While this current U.S. flu season is thought to be a relatively mild one, it still may be responsible for up to 12,000 deaths, 150,000 hospitalizations, and over 6 million doctors visits, as of the first week of January, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And its still not too late to get your flu shot or spray.

See the original post here:
A 4-Year-Old Girl's Sudden Blindness Is a Tragic Reminder of Why Everyone Should Get the Flu Shot - Gizmodo

This entry was posted on January 16, 2020 at 8:41 am and is filed under Blindness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |