(Adnkronos) - “Ho contratto l’Acanthamoeba tra la fine di maggio e gli inizi di giugno 2024. Sono andata dal mio oculista di riferimento, ma non rispondendo alle terapie mi sono recata al pronto soccorso oftalmico di Torino, dove mi hanno effettuato un tampone oculare per vedere se c'era la presenza di batteri o infezioni, ma senza successo. Solo grazie a uno screening oculare hanno trovato la positività alla cheratite da Acanthamoeba. Da quel momento ho iniziato le cure, i dolori erano molto forti perché ormai erano due settimane che avevo la malattia. Solo tramite la terapia, i dolori sono diminuiti e ho ricominciato gli allenamenti”. Lo ha detto Alice Sotero, pentatleta, in occasione del Dialogue Meeting , promosso dalla rivista di politica sanitaria Italian Health Policy Brief e organizzato in collaborazione con l’Alleanza per l’Equità di Accesso alle Cure per le Malattie Oculari, con il quale si è voluta diffondere consapevolezza sull’importanza della prevenzione, della diagnosi precoce e dell’impiego della nuova terapia mirata a base di polihexanide per il trattamento della Cheratite da Acanthamoeba, una grave infezione oculare parassitaria.
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00:00I signed a contract with Cantameba between the end of May and the beginning of June 2024.
00:11I went to my reference oculist, who treated me for an herpes,
00:18because the year before I had an herpes and I was thinking of a recidiva.
00:23Subsequently, he sent me to his colleagues because I was not responding to the therapies.
00:28I went to the pre-surgery ophthalmic course in Turin,
00:31where they tried to do an ocular tampon to see if there were bacterial infections,
00:36they did not find anything.
00:38Subsequently, I was sent to Gruseto by Professor Sarnicola,
00:43where I did an ocular scrapping,
00:45where they actually found the positiveness of the creatine from Cantameba.
00:49From that moment on, I started the treatments.
00:52The pains were very strong because it had been two weeks since I had the disease.
00:57I had an ulcer that caused me a lot of pain.
01:01I was bedridden for a long time because the anti-inflammatories, the pain killers,
01:05did not have any effect.
01:07Gradually, through the therapy, the pains decreased
01:12and I was able to resume training and my way to Paris.
01:16Despite this rare disease, with a little patience and a lot of pain support,
01:20you can do training and you can do high-level athletics.
01:26Obviously, I was followed by people who knew the disease,
01:30who constantly checked me,
01:32also because I had the problem of the swimming pool,
01:35where fungi could develop.
01:38So they were a little worried about that,
01:40but they checked me weekly to make sure it didn't happen.
01:45The alarm bell was when I came back from a race by plane.
01:49I had an eye problem that could look like a grain of sand,
01:53a redness,
01:56which I also had linked to the herpes I had the year before,
02:01because the symptoms initially seemed to be the same.
02:05The year before, the herpes had gone away through the antivirals in a short time.
02:10Instead, the antivirals had no effect on the cantameba keratitis,
02:14so none of the therapies I was doing brought a result.
02:21Then, little by little, we found the solution.