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Hendra Virus - Its History, Victims & Development of the Vaccine
The debate on whether to vacinate or not for Hendra virus is raging amongst Australian horse owners. Following is an honest and candid article that was published in The Australian earlier this year about Hendra virus - its history, victims and the development of the vaccine.
The gum trees were blooming when Natalie Beohm fell ill, their flowers creamy and feather-like in the breeze that whispered off Queensland's Moreton Bay.
It was July 2008 and the young woman had the job she had always wanted at the Redlands Veterinary Clinic, looking after horses and working with people who were more like family than colleagues. Looking back, it seems like another life. Her life before Hendra virus.
"I'm still tired all the time," Beohm is saying, nearly five long years later. She has ventured to Melbourne to find herself, such as she can, after contracting a disease that has baffled and horrified scientists and doctors in equal measure. "I still get pain all down my right side. I get night tremors. I can't hear out of my right ear," she explains, the weariness heavy in her voice. "I could keep going on about what this thing has done to me, but what's the point? I just have to live with it."
Beohm, 25, is one of only three known survivors of Hendra virus. Her friend and mentor, Ben Cunneen, a 33-year-old equine vet who was also struck down, died the day after she was released from hospital. Five horses were killed in that outbreak at a time when the disease, which can skip from animals to people, could not be treated. Cunneen was the third of Hendra's four known human victims since the virus was identified 19 years ago.
As she lay in intensive care, her doctors wondering what to do next, Beohm felt lost and helpless. The virus had invaded her brain, making her as sick as a person could be. She would say goodnight to her parents fearing that it was actually goodbye. Yet Beohm was doing more to unlock the secrets of Hendra than she could know.
Read the full story at The Australian
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