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Since January we have been following the case of Habiba Al-Askari, who came with her mother Rana in the hope doctors might be able to save three gangrene infected limbs - two arms, and a leg.

Nursing employees told the investigators that the 69-year-old man, who had been admitted with gangrene on his feet, was often confused and sometimes tried to pull out his tubes.

"One foot was so badly damaged that it had to be amputated. We tried to avoid the amputation, but it had to be performed as the foot had gangrene in the bone," he said.

By World War II, even as scientists were manufacturing gallons of phages to combat cholera, dysentery, and gangrene in Stalingrad and Leningrad, much the West had given up on phages.

Her lower legs were amputated after she developed gangrene at age 7.