A 13-year-old California soccer player is bedridden and unable to move his legs after a mosquito bite led to a rare neurological collapse.
Joseph Vasquez, 13, of Long Beach, has spent the last three weeks at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles fighting West Nile virus and transverse myelitis, a severe spinal cord inflammation that has stripped him of mobility and basic bodily control, according to a GoFundMe launched by his family.
His mother, Maria Salazar, a widowed mother of three, has not left his side since the crisis began. She has been forced to stop working entirely, cutting off the household’s only income while she keeps vigil at the hospital.
The family’s fundraiser paints a stark picture of how quickly an ordinary summer turned catastrophic. “Today, Joseph is facing challenges no 13-year-old should ever have to face,” they wrote. “He has lost the use of his legs, loss of bladder and bowel control, and is in excruciating nerve pain from the lower back down to his feet.”
The ordeal started with what looked like routine mosquito bites. Joseph developed a full-body rash, mild headache, leg pain and a low-grade fever. Within days, the symptoms exploded into something far more sinister.
Excruciating abdominal pain followed. Then a stiff neck. Then he lost bladder and bowel control. Finally, both legs stopped working entirely.
Doctors first diagnosed transverse myelitis and hit him with steroids. After days in intensive care and extensive testing, they traced the root cause to West Nile virus, a pathogen most people never know they have caught.
“West Nile virus can cause serious illness, and the number of severe cases and deaths we are seeing this year is concerning,” Los Angeles County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis warned.
The county’s Department of Public Health has logged 100 infections and five deaths this year, the highest early-season count in nearly a decade. Nearly every diagnosed case has involved severe illness requiring hospitalization, though officials acknowledge milder infections slip through undetected.
Most infected people feel nothing at all. About one in five gets fever, headaches, body aches or rash. Only roughly one in 150 faces the neurological devastation Joseph is enduring, with potential brain or spinal cord involvement and paralysis.
There is no vaccine. There is no targeted treatment.
The family said doctors have warned them that Joseph’s condition is extraordinarily rare, with scant research to chart what recovery might look like. The boy who once played soccer daily, hung out with cousins and rooted for the Dodgers, Raiders and Lakers now faces an open-ended rehabilitation with no guarantees.
“We never imagined that something that began with what seemed like minor symptoms could change Joseph’s life so quickly,” the family wrote on the fundraiser.
Peak mosquito season runs June through November, and health officials are pushing residents to use insect repellent, dump standing water and fix torn window screens. The basic precautions stand in sharp contrast to the life-altering consequences Joseph is living through.
The financial strain has compounded the medical trauma. Relatives launched the GoFundMe to cover living expenses, medical bills, transportation and rehabilitation costs while Salazar remains unable to earn.
“We are holding onto hope knowing that Joseph still has a long road ahead of him,” his family wrote.