Schoolgirl, 7, left in hospital with horrendous wound after being bitten by spider
It's believed the spider may have come from the Canary Islands on bananas
A YOUNG girl has been left hospitalised after a spider bite on her arm caused her skin to be 'eaten away', her mum has said.
It's claimed the bite, reportedly from a false widow spider, was caused after the arachnid came to the UK on bananas from the Canary Islands.
Mum Jaime Anderson, 41, told her daughter Bella came home from a sleepover with the bite on her arm.
After the bite got progressively worse, she took her young daughter to the hospital but they were sent away twice as medical staff didn't recognise it as a spider bite, Jaime explained.
She said: "It got progressively worse again. It started to leak puss and the skin looked like it was being eaten away. It was about the size of a 50p piece originally, but it became bigger."
They were then sent to a surgeon at Broomfield Hospital who "immediately recognised it as a false widow spider bite", as he had been bitten previously and also treated another young girl with a bite, she said.
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Although it was feared the youngster may have to have surgery to clean the bite, after three rounds of antibiotics it's no longer necessary, mum Jaime said.
But frighteningly, it's thought the spider came to the UK on bananas from the Canary Islands.
Jaime said: "The surgeon said they have come over in bananas from the Canaries and are now populating Essex."
Thankfully, while Bella will still have to take antibiotics after she leaves hospital, she's now on the mend and will be able to make her first day back at school on Wednesday.
But mum Jaime says they were "lucky".
"We were lucky, if we had left it any longer it would have been a lot worse," she said.
"If you get a bite you can't leave it, you have to see a doctor."
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