A mother has issued a warning to parents after her toddler lost his sight after contracting herpes in the eye.Michelle Saaiman’s two-year-old son, Juwan, lost vision in the eye after he was kissed by an acquaintance, which transferred the virus to his eyeball.A herpes cold sore started growing in his eye following the peck, which health experts think must have happened on or around the area.Then, complications from the infection meant Juwan almost lost his eye entirely and he is now awaiting a complex operation to save it.It all began in August 2024, when the then 16-month-old suddenly developed what seemed like an eye infection, however, antibiotic drops weren’t clearing it up.After it got worse, Michelle was shocked to hear that her Juwan had been diagnosed with herpes simplex virus (HSV) in his eye.

As both parents both tested negative for the virus, it became apparent that it must have been transferred via a kiss.The 36-year-old mum, from Namibia, told Metro: “The doctor was telling me there’s a fever blister growing in my child’s cornea.I was literally looking at the doctor wondering whether it’s April 1, because I thought it was an April Fool’s joke.”She added that she’d ‘never in her life heard of a fever blister growing on someone’s cornea’.However, once the family got the diagnosis, the initial medication didn’t have the desired effect and Juwan’s parents struggled to get the virus under control for weeks.Michelle said: “‘By that time the herpes just caused so much damage to his cornea that he essentially just lost all feeling in the eye and he could not see anything. He was completely blind.