The delay in adequate care caused the disease to attack the child’s kidney, liver, heart and brain in a very short time.
The delay in care and a couple of previous misdiagnoses caused the symptoms to worsen and ultimately led to the death of little Yahir Alejandro Rivera Cervantes, 4 years old, the most recent victim of rickettsia in Ciudad Juárez.
María Guadalupe Cervantes, Yahir Alejandro’s mother, said that by confusing the disease transmitted by tick bite with other illnesses, precious time was lost for his care, from Thursday of last week until yesterday Friday, the day the minor died while hospitalized at Hospital 66 of the Mexican Social Security Institute.
The doctor who initially treated the child diagnosed the child with a throat infection, and a second doctor treated the case as rubella, which resulted in a delay of several days in care that led to the rickettsia symptoms worsening and affecting the child’s kidneys, liver, heart and brain, which ultimately led to his death.
Yesterday, Friday, a few hours before the death, María Guadalupe Cervantes, mother of the child Yahir Alejandro Rivera Cervantes, told Norte Digital that since Wednesday of last week she noticed that the minor had a high temperature, but she waited until Thursday to take him to the doctor’s office at a popular pharmacy chain, where she was told that it was a throat infection for which he was prescribed a treatment.
By Friday, she said, the boy’s body had a rash and continued to have a high fever, so they took him to another doctor who diagnosed him with rubella and also gave him medication.
“On Friday, Saturday and Sunday we were treating him for rubella, but on Saturday afternoon his lips started to swell. On Sunday he woke up with a swollen nose, with his tongue and gums bleeding. It didn’t seem normal to me, so on Monday I left work and looked at him the same way. I told my husband that the bumps were appearing everywhere, and on Tuesday we took him to the Social Security Hospital 66 and that’s where they told us he had rickettsia and they started treating him in the pediatric emergency room,” she said.
As of Friday, they had already given the child five platelets. That same day Guadalupe requested blood donors due to the seriousness of her little son’s condition.
“Unfortunately, due to the time he missed from Thursday to Tuesday, the virus affected several parts of his little body. She suffered several damages to her liver, kidney, heart and brain. Her glucose was very low. His blood was not circulating well and that is why he was swelling very badly,” he said on Friday and before Yahir died.
María Guadalupe is an employee, like her husband, in maquiladora plants in this city.
“I thought we would never find ourselves in this situation. I never imagined it would be so serious,” said the native of Monterrey, who said they had moved to the Manuel Valdez neighborhood in Ciudad Juárez about a year ago.
The most recent report indicates that by June 25, 32 cases of rickettsia had been detected in the state, 14 of them resulting in the death of the patients and 8 of them on this border.
