Madonna‘s family were left ‘preparing for the worst’ after the icon was struck down with a bacterial infection.
The 64-year-old hitmaker was found unconscious in New York on Saturday and then rushed to intensive care where she was reportedly intubated overnight.
Guy Oseary, her manager, said she was suffering from a ‘serious bacterial infection’. Her epic 80-show world tour, set to begin on July 15, was postponed so she could recover.
While Madonna’s health is improving and a ‘full recovery is expected’, the mother-of-six is still being treated by medics, he said.
It is currently unclear exactly what infection or complications the Michigan-born singer is suffering from, but bacterial infections can affect various parts of the body, including the skin, lungs and blood.
While most bacteria are harmless, some can enter the body through an opening in the skin — such as a cut, insect bite or surgical wound. Others get into the body via the airways, eating contaminated food or through sex.
Examples of bacterial infections include strep A, salmonella and impetigo.
Symptoms can include a fever, cough, shortness of breath, sweating and chills, as well as a headache, muscle pain tiredness and chest pain.
But this depends on where the infection occurs. For example, while an infection in the ear may trigger ear pain and difficulty hearing, salmonella can cause diarrhoea and vomiting.
Antibiotics, which can come in pill, liquid, cream or IV form, are used to treat such infections.
The drugs work by killing the bacteria or stopping them from multiplying. They are powerless against viruses, such as the flu.
While most cases are mild, some untreated bacterial infections can lead to serious complications.
One of the most life-threatening is sepsis.
It occurs when the immune system, which helps fight-off infections, overreacts to an infection and starts attacking the body’s tissues and organs.
Sepsis, which is notoriously hard to spot because its symptoms can be mistaken for milder illnesses, requires immediate medical treatment because patients can rapidly deteriorate.
Without urgent care, it can lead to septic shock, organ failure and eventually death. This can happen within hours.
Patients may require treatment in intensive care, a machine to help them breathe or surgery to remove areas of infection. Some remain hospitalised for weeks.
Around 250,000 Brits develop sepsis per year and 52,000 die, according to the Sepsis Trust.
In the US, there are 1.7million cases per year and 270,000 deaths, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
Most patients make a full recovery from sepsis.
However, some are left with long-term issues, including feeling very tired and weak, sleeping difficulties, a lack of appetite, getting ill more often, changes in mood, nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder.
In adults, tell-tale signs of the complication can include slurred speech or confusion, shivering, muscle pain, severe breathlessness and discoloured skin.
Additionally, bacterial infections can trigger another complication called septicaemia, also known as blood poisoning.
It happens when the body’s immune system is unable to fight off the infection, leading to large amounts of bacteria entering the bloodstream.
