First Rabies Survivor Discharged

Date: January 1, 2005 • Location: Wauwatosa, United States

Jeanna Giese, the first known rabies survivor who did not receive the vaccine, was discharged from Children's Wisconsin.

Jeanna Giese-Frassetto is an American rabies survivor. In 2004, when she was aged 15, she was bitten by a bat. A month later in October, she developed flu-symptoms and her physical state quickly deteriorated. After she was diagnosed with rabies, doctors at Children's Wisconsin used an experimental treatment called the Milwaukee protocol to put her in an induced coma to allow for her body to produce the antibodies needed to fend off the virus. She awoke from her coma a week later and became the first known survivor of rabies who did not take the rabies vaccine.