"A Wisconsin woman who was the first person known to survive rabies without a vaccine has given birth to twins."

Nice to hear about good things happening to Jeanna Giese-Frassetto, who was bitten by a bat in 2004— in a church in Fond du Lac.

Here's some of the description of her case that can be found in the book "Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus":

[Dr. Rodney] Willoughby met with Giese’s shaken parents, Ann and John, to inform them of the test results and to discuss their daughter’s grim prognosis... He gave them three treatment options for their daughter: hospice care, which would allow their daughter a comfortable death at home; the standard critical care regimen, which so far had never been successful in saving an unvaccinated victim of rabies; or the experimental plan that Willoughby and his colleagues had laid out. The Gieses chose the third option without hesitation. They pointed out to Willoughby that even if their daughter didn’t survive her infection, the knowledge gained might help some future child with rabies....

In the tense days that followed, the girl lay motionless in a hospital room, animated only by monitors and by the rhythmic whoosh of the mechanical ventilator.... After Jeanna Giese had spent seven days in a coma, samples were taken of her blood and cerebrospinal fluid, which demonstrated a marked increase in the number of rabies virus antibodies compared with samples obtained on the first day of hospitalization. Her body was on the attack, striking back at the viral invasion. Giese’s immune system had mounted a robust defense against the rabies virus and delivered it to the embattled central nervous system. With this welcome piece of news, her doctors began gradually to withdraw the anesthetics. The girl’s return to consciousness was observed anxiously by Willoughby, who could not be sure what to expect. The medical literature had described survivorship among unvaccinated animals, he wryly notes— but in animal studies, “every time you get a survivor, you euthanize it.”

Although the electroencephalographic findings improved after the withdrawal of ketamine, the only immediate change on Giese’s physical exam was that her pupils became responsive to light. No other reflexes were apparent. Her limbs lay flaccid on the bed. Willoughby worried silently to himself. “Oh God, I created a lock-in,” he thought— meaning someone who is conscious but unable to communicate or respond in any physical way. “It’s, like, the worst thing you can do.” The idea that Giese might survive rabies only to be left severely disabled was a constant source of worry during the days and weeks that followed....