Was Wimbledon girl ‘poisoned’ by Uzbekistan rats?
WHEN Wimbeldon starlet Gabriella Taylor was struck down by a mystery illness and left close to death, it sparked a police investigation amid claims that she could have been poisoned by a jealous rival.
But last night another, more prosaic explanation was being put forward, after it emerged that the British teenager had spent weeks in countries prone to flooding – and diseases spread by rats.
Ms Taylor, 18, had played in a tournament in Uzbekistan – where torrential rains recently flooded streets – shortly before heading to Wimbledon, where she was competing in the girls’ tournament.
Her Twitter page shows that in Uzbekistan she was at aviaries filled with exotic birds.
She was eventually diagnosed with a rare strain of leptospirosis. It typically has an incubation period of seven to 10 days, but it can extend to almost a month in some cases.
Bacteriology expert Hugh Pennington said leptospirosis was usually transmitted in rat urine – and Ms Taylor’s exposure to flooded areas could ‘significantly increase’ her chances of contracting the flulike illness, which can kill.
Prof. Pennington said: ‘She wouldn’t have to swallow contaminated water to catch the disease. A drop of infected water on the skin could well be enough.’
The explanation will have gone some way to reassure her worried mother Milena, who said at the height of the scare: ‘The bacteria the infection team found is so rare in Britain that we feel this could not have been an accident.’