A brother and sister from Australia have been diagnosed with a rare hereditary disease that is incurable and inevitably fatal, writes The Independent.
Lachlan, 28, and Haley Webb, 30, from Australia, suffer from fatal familial insomnia, a condition that causes severe sleep disturbance and consequent brain damage, the article said.
Due to the lack of rest, the body cannot recover and wears out very quickly. The disease affects only one person in ten million. Neither medications nor any procedures can help against fatal familial insomnia, the newspaper reports.
Lachlan and Haley said that their grandmother, mother, aunt and uncle died of the disease. According to them, this disease has become a "family curse", writes the Independent.
The cause of this disease is a gene mutation in which some normal protein molecules are replaced by prions - infectious agents represented by proteins with an abnormal structure and not containing nucleic acids.
The first symptoms usually begin to appear in the middle of life - first, sleep worsens, blood pressure rises, bouts of hyperventilation occur, and uncontrolled lacrimation. As insomnia progresses, the patient suffers from hallucinations, phobias, and rapidly loses weight. At the final stage, the person stops talking, his coordination of movements is completely disturbed and the reaction to external stimuli disappears.
