A six-year-old Afghan boy evacuated from Kabul who became critically ill after eating highly poisonous wild mushrooms in Poland has undergone a liver transplant, Polish Health Minister Adam Niedzielski says.
“It is really a very complicated medical situation. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and wait to see what happens,” Niedzielski told the RMF FM radio station.
The boy and his five-year-old brother are in a Warsaw children’s hospital after they mistakenly ate the mushrooms last week whilst staying in a migrants’ centre in a forested area outside the capital.
The five-year-old suffered irreversible brain damage and is unable to have a transplant. He is believed to be in a coma.
A 17-year-old Afghan girl, who also ate poisonous mushrooms at the centre is in a stable condition and her prognosis is quite good, doctors say.
Some media reports say the children ate the mushrooms because they were hungry – but the centre says all migrants there receive three meals a day.
Employees of migrant centres have been instructed to warn all foreigners not to eat wild mushrooms.
Poland has more than 250 species of poisonous mushrooms, some of which can be deadly.
Collecting wild mushrooms in the autumn is very popular in Poland, and every year some Poles are hospitalised after eating poisonous varieties.
Poland evacuated more than 1,000 Afghans who had worked with Nato forces in the country.
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SOURCE: BBCNEWS
