Marissa Hani Mohammed Zubir, aged two, who suffered from Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease (SCID) or better known as ‘bubble boy disease’ passed away 47 days after being admitted to the Serdang Hospital intensive care unit (ICU).
Marissa, the first child in Malaysia to have successfully undergone a bone marrow transplant last year in which the donor was her own mother, Nazellynakmar Kamarudin, died in the hospital at 2.26 pm yesterday from severe ventriculitis with hydrocephalus (compressing of the brain stem due to SCID).
Nazellynakmar, 39, an administrative staff member in the Editorial Department of the National News Agency (Bernama) said her daughter was admitted to ICU since June 28 due to breathing problems before she lapsed into a semi-coma.
“In the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) results on Aug 4, doctors found that old bacteria was enlarging and eating the spinal cord, causing Marissa Hani to fall into a semi-coma until she breathed her last yesterday afternoon,” she told Bernama in Kuala Lumpur today.
Marissa was buried in the Jalam Ampang Muslim cemetery in Kuala Lumpur today after prayer rites were held at her grandfather’s house in Taman Sri Keramat Tengah, Ampang in Ulu Kelang.
She was laid to rest besides the graves of her elder sister, Sofea Hani and elder brother Muhammad Zulhakimi, who were Nazellynakmar’s third and fourth children who died in 2008 and 2010 at aged five months, 11 days and one month, 21 days respectively.
Nazellynakmar said she had accepted the death of her child as her whole family had strived to provide the best medical treatment to Marrisa Hani through specialists from within and outside the country besides that obtained from Kuala Lumpur Hospital and Serdang Hospital.
A few months after she was born, Marissa was diagnosed with SCID, an illness from the Imunodefisiensi Primer group which weakened her immune system since birth.
Nazellynakmar said Marissa was a cheerful child, high-spirited and courageous despite having constantly being admitted to the hospital for painful treatment.
SCID is a genetic disease and babies that suffer from it will always experienced severe clinical features due to various infections during infancy.
It is often dubbed the ‘bubble boy disease’ as it referred to a young patient, David Vetter, who lived in a germ-free plastic bubble since birth until the day he died.
- Bernama
