SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An 8-year-old girl who contracted rabies — likely from a wild cat — is a rare survivor of the infection without having received the life-saving vaccine, hospital officials said Sunday.
Precious Reynolds, 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 hospital said she is the third person in the United States known to have recovered from the virus without having antiviral inoculations immediately after becoming infected, a figure confirmed by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics on rabies cases.
Precious contracted the disease in April, but it was not clear exactly when. Health officials believe she got it from a feral cat she encountered near her elementary school in rural Humboldt County in northern California, but an infected animal could not be found.
“None of us thought she would leave the PICU,” Krystle Realyvasquez, a nurse who cared for Precious, said in the statement. “When she did, it was unbelievable.”
