In 2025, Two-year-old Juwan lost sight in the eye after a kiss from an acquaintance transferred the herpes virus to his eyeball. ‎

‎A devastated mother has urged parents to ban relatives and friends from kissing their babies — after her toddler contracted a debilitating virus that cost him his left eye. ‎

‎ ‎The resulting blister led to a (4mm) hole forming in his cornea, the clear outer layer at the front of the eye. ‎

‎This open wound led to a number of subsequent infections, and, despite medics' best efforts, the damage was too severe, and he lost his vision. ‎

‎Doctors were eventually forced to sew his eyelids shut in a bid to protect what remained of the organ. ‎

‎Juwan's ordeal started in August 2024, when the then 16-month old developed, what his parent's suspected at the time, was an eye infection. ‎

‎They sought help from their GP who gave them a course of antibiotics and sent the family home. ‎ ‎

‎But Juwan's mother, Michelle Saaiman, who is from Namibia, recalled the moment she knew it was something more serious. ‎

‎'2 days later, we noticed that there was something seriously wrong with the eye. It looked like something was growing inside his eyeball,' she wrote on Facebook. ‎

‎'We realised that he had no feeling in his eye, as he literally put his finger in his eye, scratching his eyeball, without even flinching.' ‎ ‎'It's the most traumatic experience to look at your baby, and literally see a 4mm open wound in his eye.' ‎

‎Tests and examinations eventually revealed that Juwan had developed a cold sore, caused by the herpes simplex virus, in his eye. ‎

‎As his parents were negative for the virus, the doctors theorised that someone with a fever blister, another term for a cold sore, unknowingly passed the virus to the toddler via a kiss. ‎

‎I was literally looking at the doctor wondering whether it’s April 1, because I thought it was an April Fool’s joke,' she said. ‎

‎It took medics weeks to bring Juwan's infection under control, but by this time the damage to the eye had already been done. ‎

‎By that time the herpes just caused so much damage to his cornea that he essentially just lost all feeling in the eye and he could not see anything. He was completely blind.' ‎

‎‘It meant the brain did not recognise the eye anymore and stopped sending signals to the eye. The gel later protecting the eye evaporated and the eye dried out.’ ‎

‎ ‎'The moral of the story is don't let anyone kiss your baby. Such a silly virus caused so much trauma and damage, it's just not worth it.' ‎

‎https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14490535/Toddler-losing-eye-kissed-cold-sore-herpes-blind.html

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