A three-year-old girl struck down with the mysterious hepatitis wave sweeping the world has been spared death after receiving part of her father’s liver.
Lola-Rose Raine, from Gravesend, Kent, started off with what her parents thought was a tummy bug before her eyes developed a yellow tinge.
Days after arriving at Darent Valley Hospital in Kent her liver began to fail, with medics forced to put her in a coma and remove the diseased organ, giving her just hours to live without a new one.
Dad Alan Raine, 27, who works in security, said it was like “literally watching our little girl die before our eyes” as he waited to hear if his organ would be a match.
He told the Daily Mail: “It was like someone’s reached into your chest and torn your heart out. I was thinking ‘there’s nothing you can do’.
“They could have told me I wasn’t going to survive the surgery and she was, and I would have gone straight ahead with it.
“All I was thinking is — she’s going to get better and we can help.”
Mr Raine was told of the risks and said it was a decision of either donating his liver or having his heart "torn out" as his child suffered.
Almost a month after the surgery, Lola-Rose has made a full recovery and will be discharged from hospital this week.
The tot is one of around 190 children worldwide to be struck by the same illness that has baffled health experts in recent months, according to the latest figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Some 114 cases have been diagnosed in the UK so far with experts warning it could be the 'tip of the iceberg' due to many symptoms going unnoticed.
Several of those including Lola-Rose have required a liver transplant and at least one child has died, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Most children are aged under five and their condition started with sickness and diarrhoea followed by jaundice, according to the UK Health Security.
Most cases have occurred in children aged five and under, leaving 17 in need of critical liver transplants so far.
Experts suspect a virus and have not ruled out Covid-19.
Three in four UK cases have been linked to adenoviruses, which are usually behind stomach illnesses and the common cold.
But it can develop into hepatitis among patients who are unable to fight off the virus.
By Saturday, a total 169 cases of 'acute hepatitis of unknown origin' had been confirmed by the WHO found in 12 countries since last October.
This was followed by another two cases reported in North Carolina US.
