A 15-year-old Brazilian boy has been cured of rabies, making him the second survivor from confirmed cases of the disease worldwide and the first in the country, Xinhua quoted Brazil's Pasteur Institute as saying. The disease, most commonly caused by a bite from an infected mammal, leads to acute inflammation of the brain. If untreated, it is almost invariably fatal. The teenager from Recife, capital of Brazil's northeastern state of Pernambuco, was bitten by a bat as he slept. He survived the virus after a month of hospitalization. The treatment received by the boy was similar to that given to the first cured patient of rabies, a teenaged girl from the U.S. city of Milwaukee. However, doctors from the two countries did not adopt exactly the same measures as some necessary drugs were not available in Brazil. This kind of treatment, developed in 2004, has been tried on 17 cases. However, only the American girl and the Brazilian boy survived. A third cured case in Colombia is yet to be confirmed. The treatment, monitored by Brazil's Health Ministry, may be developed into the standard treatment for rabies in the country. However, the boy is still in a critical condition, as he remains sedated and is breathing with the aid of machines. Brazil has registered 629 cases of rabies in the last 20 years, mainly in the northern and northeastern regions of the country, which are relatively less developed.
