Calif. girl overcomes rabies without vaccination

Precious Reynolds, who contracted the disease in April, most likely from a feral cat outside her elementary school, was put into a drug-induced coma called 'Milwaukee protocol' to fight rabies, according to reports.

Girl overcomes rabies without vaccine
Precious from of Willow Creek, Calif. was treated by pediatricians at the University of California Davis Children's Hospital in coordination with federal and California health officials, the hospital said in a statement.

The little girl contracted rabies in April, but her parents were unaware she contracted the infection until she started to develop pains throughout her body.

Her grandmother then took the girl to the doctor who sent her to the University of California Davis Children's Hospital, where doctors tested Precious positive for rabies in early May.

The doctors carrying out the tests on her were shocked to see when they found rabies.

"Rabies was not on my list," Dr. Theresa Vlautin, her pediatrician at Children's Hospital, told the Sacramento Bee. "It's very, very rare to get rabies in a human - there about 30 cases in the world."

After miraculously surviving the rabies without life-saving vaccine, Precious has become the one of only three people in the United States, and the first Californian to have survived rabies.

Precious was near death
The doctors treating the little girl said that she had a 2 to 3 percent chance of survival.

“She was pretty close to death,” the Daily Mail quoted her father, Willie Reynolds, as telling the Sacramento Bee.

Girl miraculously survived!
Doctors placed the little girl under "Milwaukee protocol" to let the body fight off the virus as she received anti-viral medication.

"Essentially, we're putting her brain to sleep to protect it this time," said Dr. Jennifer Plant, a member of Reynolds' medical team.

After spending nearly two weeks in the medically induced coma, the girl slowly started to wake up, and showed that her immune system was strong.

"From the very beginning, Precious had a very rapid, robust immune response to her infection, which is a significant contributor to why she survived," Dr. Jean Wiedeman, leader of the pediatric team, said.

Currently, Precious is in the hospital's general pediatric unit. She is able to talk and write right, and is expected to be released from the hospital on June 22.

The other miracle survivors
After miraculously surviving the rabies without life-saving vaccine, Precious has become the one of only three people in the United States, and the first Californian to have survived rabies.

The first such survivor was Jeanna Giese of Wisconsin who contracted the infection when she was bitten by a bat in 2004 when she was 14. Another is a Texas girl who survived documented rabies in the United States in 2009.

About rabies
Rabies is a viral disease that attacks the nervous system, deteriorating and disabling basic bodily functions from breathing to swallowing, eventually targeting the brain.

Humans get the virus when they're bitten or scratched by infected animals. After the rabies virus is transmitted to the human body, it infects the nervous system and causes encephalopathy (brain disease) eventually leading to death. Early symptoms include fever, headache.

With the progression of the disease, the patient may experience insomnia, anxiety confusion, paralysis, hallucinations, dysphagia (difficulty in swallowing), and hydrophobia (fear of water).

Though, it is preventable in humans, rabies, a viral disease, still takes the lives of roughly 50,000 people globally every year.