A 13-year-old boy has died after spending nine years in a coma caused by eating contaminated cheese.
Mattia Maestri never recovered from the moment a single piece of raw-milk cheese ripped his life apart.
The teen died after spending nearly a decade in a permanent vegetative state.
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The infection came from raw milk cheese contaminated with a toxic strain of E. coli.
Doctors confirmed the deadly infection struck when he was just four years old.
It left him trapped in a coma for nine long years until his final breath on Sunday (2 Aug).
That bacteria triggered haemolytic uraemic syndrome which shredded his kidneys and brain.
Mattia needed round-the-clock care and took dozens of medications every single day.
His father Giovanni Battista Maestri said: “Our Mattia has left us and on his behalf I thank you for contributing to making his passing less painful.”
The family begged people to remember their boy with love instead of flowers.
They asked for donations to local palliative care services instead.
The funeral took place at the parish church in Coredo, Italy, yesterday afternoon (3 Aug).
Relatives including his parents, sister Vittoria, grandmothers, aunts and uncles gathered to say their last goodbye.
Mattia had eaten the contaminated ‘Due Laghi’ raw-milk cheese produced by a local dairy on 5 June 2017, as reported by Need To Know.
He first went to hospital in Cles, then transferred to Santa Chiara in Trento, where the full horror emerged.
Investigators later proved the dairy’s raw milk product carried the deadly Shiga toxin-producing E. coli.
Two men from the dairy were convicted of causing grievous bodily harm after a long court battle that reached Italy’s highest court.
Giovanni turned his private agony into a public crusade for safer food.
He founded a consumer group and wrote a book warning parents about the hidden dangers of unpasteurised dairy.
Experts stress children under five years face the highest risk from such bacteria.
Raw milk products can still carry pathogens that pasteurisation would kill.
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