DUBAI, Dec 6: A 42-year-old Indian expatriate here has beaten a rare and deadly bacterial infection after struggling between life and death here for 54 days.
Nitesh Sadanand Madgaocar, a driver from Goa, who was diagnosed with cepacia syndrome – a bacterial infection with a high mortality rate of 75 per cent – made a miraculous recovery, according to doctors who treated him.
Cepacia syndrome is a fatal condition affecting the respiratory system combined with multiple organ failures. A resident of the UAE for 27 years, Madgaocar had returned to Abu Dhabi after a vacation in the last week of August. He developed fever and weakness while quarantining.
On August 28, two days after the onset of fever, his condition worsened. His employer took him to a quaternary care hospital where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. He had high fever, fatigue, pain in the joints, shortness of breath, and loss of smell and appetite.
Upon medical evaluation, he was found to be diabetic.
His inflammatory markers were high, and he had tachycardia (faster heart rates) and crepitation (explosive sounds) in both the lungs. Put on high flow nasal oxygen, he was administered intravenous antibiotics by the doctors to treat pneumonia.
Later, abscesses surfaced on different parts of Nitesh’s body, and he developed effusion in the left knee. His health started to deteriorate, and the inflammatory markers went up again. The culture reports from multiple abscesses found a rare bacterium, ‘Burkholderia cepacia’, and he was diagnosed with the rare cepacia syndrome.
He was shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and a multi-disciplinary team of doctors analysed his reports and health conditions.
Niyas Khalid, Specialist Internal Medicine at Burjeel Medical City, led the team of doctors with Georgey Koshy, the Medical Director of the hospital.
“The team designed the treatment protocol and administered Nitesh double IV antibiotics, along with inhalational and antifungal medicines and steroids.
It took four weeks for him to get better,” said Khalid, who diagnosed the case.
After a few days in the ICU, Nitesh’s health improved.
The lesions in the lungs and abscesses in the liver had disappeared. It took 54 days for Nitesh to beat the rare and deadly bacterial infection.
“By the time I reached the hospital, my health had deteriorated considerably. I would not have come back to life if the doctors had not treated me well,” said Madgaocar. (PTI)
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