HOUSTON – A Houston teenager had to spend a night in the hospital, three weeks after a mosquito bit his knee.
Fourteen-year-old Jayvir Green's said his leg started itching after he was playing outside. The itching didn't stop, and when his knee started to swell, his mother took him to the doctor. A week later it hadn't gotten any better and the pain was so bad, Jayvir's mother took him to the emergency room.
"It got really yellow and swollen and was hard to work. Very difficult. So I went to the ER and they drained it," Jayvir said.
The doctor told him he had an abscess from the mosquito bite. He spent the night in the hospital. Now he is on antibiotics.
"Take heed. If it feels warm or if the area looks really, really red, take [your child] to your doctor because you want to make sure that they don't get a major infection cross over into the bloodstream or anything like that that," Jayvir's mother, Cassandra Green-Johnson said. "The ER doctor told us it could cross over into the bloodstream and that could really be bad."
Pediatricians said it was not necessarily the mosquito that carried something and that it could have been the bacteria on the leg.
Experts said it's a good idea to use insect repellent. If you get a mosquito bite, keep the area around the bite clean to prevent infection.