A 6-year-old boy from Florida died due to rabies, as an experimental treatment failed to save his life from the dreaded disease.
Rabies is a viral disease that humans usually acquire by being bitten or scratched by an infected animal. Rabies destroys the nervous system and attacks the brain, and once its symptoms appear, the victim usually succumbs to it.
Florida Boy Dies To Rabies From Bat Scratch
Ryker Roque, a 6-year-old boy from Eustis, Florida died due to rabies that was contracted from a bat scratch.
According to Henry Roque, the boy's father, he found a sick bat that he placed inside a bucket. He told his son to not touch the bat, but the boy went against his father's wishes and was scratched by the animal.
Harry applied the first aid of washing his son's hand with soap and hot water, but decided not to take Ryker to the hospital for additional treatment because his son cried when he was told that he would be getting shots.
The decision haunted Harry when Ryker said about a week later that he had a headache and his fingers were numb. When he took his son to the hospital and mentioned the bat scratch, the doctors were alarmed. They explained to Harry that rabies is almost always lethal once the symptoms start showing. The virus would have been prevented if Ryker was vaccinated right after getting scratched by the bat.
In desperation, Ryker's family agreed to place him into a medically induced coma as part of an experimental technique against rabies. The Milwaukee protocol, invented by Dr. Rodney Willoughby of the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, has successfully treated at least two children in the United States and 18 people across the world.
While in the coma, Ryker was given antiviral drugs to fight back against rabies. However, after nine days, Ryker succumbed to the virus as it was too far long within the child's frail body.
Rabies In Other Areas Of United States
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, death from rabies in the United States is rare, with only 23 reported cases from 2008 to 2017.
However, people living in areas with wild carnivores and bats need to remain on guard. In August 2017, a coyote that attacked a woman walking through a park in New York tested positive for rabies. A month earlier, a bobcat that attacked a man and his dog in Arizona was also found to be positive for the virus, with further confirmation in the state's Superstition Mountain area in November.
