Three Afghan child refugees in Poland have suffered liver failure after eating poisonous mushrooms from a forest beside their migration centre.
Two of the children are in intensive care. The five-year-old cannot have a liver transplant and the prognosis for him is bleak, but the six-year-old will have a transplant today, doctors at the Children’s Memorial Health Institute said.
Professor Jaroslaw Kierkus told a news conference that the three children – aged five, six and 17 – had been staying at the Debak-Podkowa Lesna migrant centre, which is located in a forest just outside Warsaw. He said they suffered liver failure after they ate poisonous mushrooms.
The children are part of a family evacuated from Kabul by the Polish military. They arrived at the centre on 23 August and the children ate the mushrooms the following day. They were admitted to the hospital on 26 August.
“The boys aged five and six were in a very serious condition from the moment of admission to the hospital and their condition has been constantly deteriorating. The boys are currently in the intensive care unit,” Kierkus said.
He said the five-year-old was ineligible for a transplant because of damage to his central nervous system. His six-year-old brother will start the procedure to have a transplant later today. He denied media reports that the five-year-old was already brain dead, but he added that irreversible brain damage had occurred.
The 17-year-old girl is in a stable condition and her prognosis is “quite good”, he said.
Every year, a number of Poles are hospitalised after eating poisonous mushrooms collected in forests.
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SOURCE: BBCNEWS
