Pupil tells of painful arm after vaccine
By People.Reporter, February 22, 2023
In Makueni county, a teenage girl is in agony after developing swelling on her left shoulder soon after receiving a Covid-19 jab last August. The swelling, which has been growing by the day, has affected Cynthia Ndunge’s mobility.
She entirely depends on her mother to move around and to bathe. The affected area has developed painful sores which require constant dressing.
Yesterday, Cynthia told the People Daily her greatest miseries are lack of sleep and nausea. “I cannot lie on the bed lest the wounds open up. I sit up throughout the night. My main prayer is that night-time never comes,” she told reporters at her mother’s rented home at Kiboko in Makueni county.
Constant itching
The 17-year old developed the swelling last August while in Form Three at Good Shepherd High School, Kikuumini, Makueni. She recalls a constant itching on the affected arm after she received the vaccine, alongside other students from the school, last February.
When the swelling got out of hand, the school sent her home to seek treatment. Medics at Makindu sub-county Hospital put her on painkillers then referred her for specialised tests at Machakos Imaging Centre, a private lab.
The results showed “a heterogeneous left proximal arm and shoulder soft tissue mass with areas of cystic degeneration, and heterogeneous enhancement post contrast …”
Medics at Makindu Sub-County Hospital required yet another test at Kenyatta National Referral Hospital, where doctors diagnosed “left-shoulder chondrosarcoma” — a rare cancer which affects bone cartilage.
Her mother, Zipporah Mulwa, has three other children. She is a cleaner at a local restaurant and says she cannot afford to pay for her daughter’s treatment at Kenyatta National Hospital as her savings have now been depleted.