College student’s ‘freshers’ flu turns out to be deadly meningitis, leading to amputations
A 19-year-old marketing student at De Montfort University in Leicester developed meningococcal septicemia after what began as a routine freshers’ illness, resulting in the amputation of both legs and all ten fingers.
Ketia Moponda, a 19-year-old marketing and advertising student at De Montfort University in Leicester, arrived on campus eight days before she was struck down by what she initially believed was freshers' flu. She was diagnosed with meningococcal septicaemia, a life-threatening form of bacterial meningitis that led to sepsis, and she ultimately had both legs amputated below the knee and all ten fingers in January 2025.
Meningococcal septicaemia can be spread by coughing and sneezing.
Her illness began with a cough on Sept. 25, 2024. She grew extremely drowsy after eating pizza that evening, took some medicine, and woke the next morning feeling worse. By lunchtime, she phoned her cousin saying she felt she was going to pass out, and by 8 p.m. she told her best friend she felt like she was going to die. When she didn't check in with her cousin the next day, family and friends alerted the university. An ambulance took her to the ICU at Leicester Royal Infirmary; she was put into a coma and woke two days later. She later recalled that she could not see or speak at first, and it took about a week before she started to communicate again. The skin on her fingers and feet began to shrivel and swell due to a lack of blood flow. Two weeks later, she developed a flesh-eating infection on her buttocks; medics grafted skin from her thighs to her buttocks.
She was transferred to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, in December, where all ten fingers and thumbs, and both legs were amputated just below the knee, on January 7, 2025. Doctors said the legs had died because of a lack of blood going to them; the operation marked a turning point as Moponda began to adjust to life with limb loss.
Ketia, who had been active at the gym daily and hoped to model, left the hospital on February 24. In May, she received prosthetic lower legs and began rehabilitation in Wolverhampton. She is still waiting to see whether she will have prosthetic fingers. It usually takes about a year to relearn walking, but she was already walking in parks unaided. She hopes to return to running and continue her modelling career, and she remains determined to break barriers for people with disabilities.