• A Bloemfontein couple is still reeling after their seven-year-old daughter died of a viral brain infection. 
• According to Mika Botes' mother, she was a healthy child who seldom fell ill.
• In 2009, the couple also lost their son, who suffocated and died at a daycare centre.

"I feel like a murderer who has to live with this for the rest of my life."

These are the words of Pieter Botes, a businessman from Bloemfontein, who, with his wife, Marietjie, had to make the difficult decision to switch off the machines that kept their seven-year-old daughter, Mika, alive after she contracted a viral brain infection and fell into a coma.

"When there is nothing left, no lung or heart function, you realise you cannot keep her alive on a ventilator. But it is difficult, no words in the world can make it better."

Mika, who was a Grade 1 pupil at Dr CF Visser Primary School, was pronounced dead at the Life Rosepark Hospital in Bloemfontein on Monday morning.

She had a mild headache last Monday, after which they visited a doctor and she was admitted to hospital on Tuesday night after having an epileptic seizure.

Second child to tragically die

She was subsequently diagnosed with a viral brain infection.

Mika is the Botes' second child to tragically die. Their four-month-old son, Johan, suffocated about 11 years ago at a daycare centre in the city.

"You never think it will happen to you twice. It seems impossible, but then the impossible happens again," Marietjie says as she stares into the distance.

They could not imagine that Mika, who was obsessed with making TikTok videos, would not return home after they rushed her to hospital last Tuesday.

"Mika was a healthy child, who occasionally had a runny nose. She didn't have any childhood illnesses and only took antibiotics twice in her short lifetime. On Monday, when we dropped her off for school, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

"When the school called at around 13:45 because she wasn't feeling well, we fetched her immediately. She was not a child who'd complain. As she was approaching our car, she was skipping and jumping."

After school, Mika slept. That night, she started vomiting and could not hold anything down.

On Tuesday, the family went to see a doctor and rushed her to hospital later that day after she'd had an epileptic seizure. She had about five of these seizures on every subsequent day. She then fell into a coma and never regained consciousness.

Marietjie says she cannot bring herself to go back to work.

She was with us every day, says Pieter.

"You never get over the death of your child. Never."