A Sri Lankan senior citizen visiting her family in Melbourne, Australia has contracted a rare flesh-eating disease, with doctors amputating her left hand to manage the disease.

74-year-old Carmel Rodrigo was visiting her daughter Gayathri Perera in Melbourne when she began to feel shooting pain in her left arm.

The family who had recently moved to Australia is currently fighting for Carmel’s life in hospital, after the senior mysteriously contracted the disease. Doctors had been forced to sedate her in an attempt to manage her pain.

Carmel travelled to Australia at the beginning of the year to visit her daughter and her young family. After several months of sightseeing and family time, Carmel began to go “delirious” one night last month, her daughter Gayathri said.

“She was screaming with pain and her hand was all swollen, going slightly blue,” Gayathri told Yahoo News. After rushing her mum to the emergency room where the pair had to wait for several hours, Carmel started to lose the feeling in her arm and her daughter feared she was becoming paralyzed.

“The doctors said it was an infection but they couldn’t recognize which kind, the spread was really fast. I was told to pray because she only had a 10 per cent chance of survival.”

Carmel has now been diagnosed with the “deadly” Buruli ulcer, commonly referred to as the “flesh-eating” disease,

Following the diagnosis, Carmel’s left hand was amputated to curb the disease’s progression. She has been sedated in the hospital for the past three weeks, with doctors explaining that her pain would be “unbearable” if she were conscious, Gayathri said.

Buruli ulcer, which damages skin and soft tissue, is spread by mosquitoes and other animals. The disease has previously been detected in several Australian states.