Melody can no longer talk, walk or feed herself. She spends her days sitting in a chair and must wear nappies.
She is even unable to hold up her own head, like a weak newborn infant.
Doctors are baffled by her mystery condition and continue to carry out tests to diagnose it and search for a way forward.
They have told Melody’s mother Alicia Ellis, 25, there is no reason to believe the MMR vaccine has anything to do with her condition.
However, Miss Ellis is convinced it is the only logical explanation and there could be a connection to a neurological problem she had as a newborn baby.
Miss Ellis, from Leeds, said: ‘Show me the evidence that it’s not linked to the MMR jab and I might be all right, but they can’t.
‘It’s awful and unbelievable. I want her back like she was. It’s like having a baby again. They have done tests and everything has come back negative.’
Melody suffered some brain damage after she picked up a serious herpes virus at two-weeks of age.
The tiny baby was seriously-ill in hospital and was close to death. Doctors feared she would suffer from developmental problems as a result, but to their amazement she made a complete recovery and grew up as a normal, healthy little girl.
Then last July Miss Ellis, a full-time mother-of-three, received a letter advising her to have Melody and her seven-year-old brother Ryan vaccinated.
The mother said she told nurses she was worried about Melody having the measles, mumps and rubella jab because of the infection she had as a baby, but was told ‘she’ll be fine.’
Two days later the lively schoolgirl was struggling to walk.
‘She told me her legs were hurting and she couldn’t walk. She used to love dancing but her she was holding on to anything to support herself.
‘I took her to a couple of doctors, then hospital, and she was admitted to hospital a week after the jab. She’s been there ever since having test after test but she’s just not getting any better – in fact she is getting worse.
‘They just don’t know what’s wrong with her, all the tests have come back negative. It’s heartbreaking – she can barely move and she has lost her speech.
‘I think the jab has attacked the part of her brain that was damaged when she was a baby. It’s just too much of a coincidence for this to happen just two days after her jab, but no-one wants to listen to me.’
The shocking decline is graphically shown by two Christmas home videos, one from 2006 of her with her siblings and a contrasting one of Melody unable to do anything for herself last December.
Miss Ellis, whose partner works as a courier, said her daughter was allowed home from Leeds General Infirmary at weekends, but remained in hospital for the forseeable future.
Source: MailOnline, 21 January 2009, by Chris Ellise.
