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15-Year-Old Girl Survives Rabies Infection

Posted by timothy on from the not-quite-out-of-the-woods dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A 15 y.o. girl in Wisconsin is the first known survivor of a rabies infection who did not receive the vaccine. She was placed into an induced coma while doctors gave her a cocktail of drugs to help her immune system fight the infection. (For those of us who don't realize this, rabies is considered 100% fatal once symptoms appear)."

2 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. The first without the vaccine by wscott · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the other article:
    Prior to Giese, there were only five documented cases of survival once clinical symptoms from rabies appeared, but each person had been immunized against the virus after being bitten
  2. Re:The article explains why she got better.. by UranusReallyHertz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What bothers me is how people always credit prayer while ignoreing the advanced medical care the girl recieved. Maybe, just maybe, that had something to do with it? The logical extreme of this beleif is faith-healers who refuse medical attention. I've read a story about a young boy with a tumor on his head so large he couldn't actually lift it anymore and his idiot parents jast kinda watched and prayed. Ugh.

    --
    Smoking is an expensive, slow, and unreliable method of suicide.