One of the three minors with symptoms of rabies in Oaxaca died this Wednesday at the Doctor Aurelio Valdevieso Hospital, as reported this Wednesday by the Oaxaca Health Services Secretariat (SSO). The seven-year-old boy had been bitten by a bat at the beginning of December in Palo de Lima, a municipality in San Lorenzo Texmelucan, a cause that led him and his two sisters, eight and two years old respectively, to be hospitalized. on December 24. The authorities have added that the eight-year-old girl is “under sedoanalgesia and medical ventilation” in serious condition. The third hospitalized has no symptoms, although she continues under medical surveillance.
“Unfortunately, and despite the efforts of health specialists, the minor lost his life at 5:06 p.m. that day,” they said in the statement. The deceased and his sister were on the brink of brain death in recent days. From the Health Services they assure that the minor will continue with “comfort and medical treatment” measures, despite her state of health.
The director of the hospital, Concepcion Rocio Arias, has repeated this Wednesday before the local media that the situation has come about due to the delay in a medical response. “The first six hours are the ones that make the difference between life and death. These minors were not given medical attention or, where appropriate, they did not go to receive prophylaxis, which is the application of the anti-rabies vaccine.
The minors were attacked in early December, and entered the hospital last Saturday. After their admission to the Hospital, the health authorities reported that tests would be carried out to confirm that rabies was the cause of the health complications of the three minors. This Wednesday, the agency has specified that the results of the laboratory of the Institute of Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference (Indre) are still awaited. Thus, the SSO has ensured that the death of the patient is due to health complications as a result of the “wildlife” bite.
The Secretary of Health of Oaxaca, Alma Lilia Velasco, highlighted last Monday that the infected girls and minor lived in a community with conditions of “extreme marginality.” Oscar Sosa, a doctor specializing in epidemiology, believes that care should not be differentiated by populations where the infection could be caused, and sees it as “worrying” that there was no prompt care. “What I don’t like as an epidemiologist when it comes to the situation is that the first thing they say is that ‘they were people who are in extreme poverty or extreme vulnerability.’ We have the obligation to bring health services closer to any part of our republic,” Sosa explained to this newspaper in a video call.
Between 2010 and 2019, there were 13 deaths related to rabies transmitted by wild animals, according to data from the Ministry of Health. 10 of the deaths were related to bat attacks, two by skunks (also known as skunks) and one by the gray fox. The common pattern of the 13 deaths, the authorities describe, was the delay in treating the infection (“not going to seek medical-antirabies care immediately”). On December 20, a 29-year-old woman previously attacked by a “semi-domestic” cat in the municipality of Compostela, in Nayarit, was seriously hospitalized, under isolation and medical surveillance in the city of Tepic.
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