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Well, that’s just swell! Man suffers severe reaction to mosquito bite - and loses his job for taking time off work

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A FACTORY worker had to be rushed to hospital after his faced swelled up ‘like a sausage’ when he was bitten by a mosquito.

Immediately after he was bitten, Mr Zhang had trouble opening his eyes, while the bite quickly began to ooze pus.

But the severe reaction was so rare that a succession of doctors turned him away as they couldn’t work out what was wrong with him.

And to compound his misery Mr Zhang was apparently fired from his job because he had failed to turn up for work as he sought treatment.

Mr Zhang was bitten in the face while at work at a printing factory in China’s eastern Jiangsu Province.

Mr Zhang recalled: 'I remember very clearly. I was working the night shift and the mosquito bit me at around 2am.’

Following the bite, Mr Zhang’s face unexpectedly began to swell, with the mosquito bite even beginning to ooze pus.

Before he knew it, Mr Zhang’s face was swollen 'like a sausage’, and he even had trouble opening his eyes.

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However, he said that his nightmare only began with the symptoms because he had then been forced to visit a succession of hospitals, with all of them turning him away saying they had no idea what was wrong with him.

In the end Zhang went to the city of Luoyang in central China’s Henan Province where he finally got treatment.

At the Luoyang Dongfang Hospital, Zhang was diagnosed with neonatal scleroderma, a disease characterised with the swelling and hardening of subcutaneous fat.

Doctor Dai Tao, head of plastic surgery at the hospital, said: “The patient’s symptoms are very rarely seen. Besides his face, he had no swelling anywhere else.”

The doctor added that Mr Zhang’s heart, lungs, and blood tests all came back clean and without any problems, leading doctors to believe that the mosquito bite was the root cause of the swelling.

Dr Dai said that in extreme cases, mosquitoes can cause this type of swelling if the patient is bitten on a lymph node, which can be found in several places on the neck and face.

And the solution proved remarkably simple after Zhang was given an ice pack bag and told to calm down as a cure for the swelling.

He is reportedly now recovering at home after being let go by the printing factory.

Pictures courtesy of Central European News and Wikipedia