A 4-year-old girl contracted sepsis after trying on a new pair of shoes. This bacterial infection of the blood causes more than six million deaths worldwide each year.
At the end of August, the British daily The Sun told us about the chilling mishap of Sienna, a four-year-old girl who contracted sepsis after putting on a pair of barefoot shoes in a store. “It was summer, so my daughter was wearing sandals,” her mother Jodie Thomas told the British daily.
The day after this fitting session, Sienna suffered from spasms and severe pain in one of her legs. His mother takes him to the hospital: the next day, the doctors diagnose him with sepsis. The child would have contracted a bacterium present in the shoes tested which could interfere in a wound, suppose the caregivers.
Take a spare pair of socks
Sienna spent 5 days in the hospital but was finally able to return home. “[Les médecins] thought they had to operate (…) but they managed to drain all the pus from his leg and, according to them, the antibiotic drip will do the job, “says his mother.
Jodie Thomas wanted to share her traumatic experience with all the other parents: “I advise moms and dads who do back-to-school shopping to take a spare pair of socks with them,” she recommends.
Fever, accelerated heart rhythms …
Created by the French physician Pierre Piorry in 1837, the term sepsis refers to the presence of bacteria in the blood. This infection usually affects patients with weakened immune systems.
Sepsis and septic shock can be triggered locally in the presence of an infection (fungus, peritonitis, pneumonia, urinary tract infection, catheter infection, etc.) including an infection apparently as minor as a torn nail.
It is not the infection itself, but the response of the immune system to the infection that is involved. Normally an infection is localized and the immune system can prevent it from spreading to other parts of the body.
However, if an infection is particularly severe, it can spread before the immune system has a chance to bring it under control, causing the immune system to overwork and inflammation that spreads throughout the body. From there, it can prove fatal.
Six million deaths worldwide
The symptoms of sepsis are numerous: fever or hypothermia, rapid breathing and heart rate, increase or decrease in the number of white blood cells …
Of the 30 million cases of sepsis reported each year worldwide, 6 million have resulted in death – as many deaths as myocardial infarction, according to thePastor Institute.
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