A five-month-old baby boy has died after his parents put out a plea for a life-saving partial liver transplant from a living donor.
Marcus Albers was born in October 2018 with an extremely rare genetic disease that changes the way cells in the body communicate and attacks the liver, reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Doctors at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Waukesha told his parents, Anthony and Whitney, that he wouldn't live unless he had a transplant.
It seemed last week that a donor was lined up for the infant, but that fell through and Marcus had to be put on a ventilator before he passed away yesterday morning.
Marcus Albers, five months (pictured), was born in October 2018 with Immunodeficiency 47, a rare genetic disease that changes the way cells in the body communicate and attacks the liver
Both Marcus (left and right) and his older brother, Dominic, two, were diagnosed with the disease. Dominic will need a liver transplant, but in the future because his version of Immunodeficiency 47 is not as aggressive
Immunodeficiency 47 is linked to the X chromosome and is characterized by recurrent bacterial infections, liver dysfunction and jaundice, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Patients can also have neurological disabilities such as seizures, mild intellectual disability and behavioral abnormalities.
According to a 2016 study from Radboud University in the Netherlands, there were only 11 other males in the world with the condition, making Marcus the twelfth.
Two patients died in early childhood and three had hearing loss and hyperopia, a vision condition in which nearby objects are blurry.
Both Marcus and his older brother, Dominic, two, were diagnosed with the disease.
Dominic will need a liver transplant, but not immediately because his version of Immunodeficiency 47 is not as aggressive.
None of Marcus's family
