- Millena Brandão, an 11-year-old Brazilian child actress, passed away on May 2, 2025, following a sudden and unexplained decline in health
- Millena’s parents, Thays and Luiz Brandão, reported terrible headaches, leg discomfort, exhaustion, and loss of appetite starting on April 24
- Despite repeated hospital trips, she was misdiagnosed with dengue fever and discharged without tests
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An adorable child actress, Millena Brandão, died unexpectedly after multiple heart attacks, as confirmed by her mother.
Millena Brandão, 11, died on Friday at Granjaú General Hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, after suffering from severe headaches since last Wednesday.
Child actor dies aged 11 after suffering ‘multiple heart attacks’.
Credit: @jampressSource: Instagram
Brandão, who starred in the Netflix series Sintonia, experienced 13 cardiac arrests from Wednesday to Thursday, according to her doctor.
Brandão’s official cause of death remained unknown as of Monday.
‘The doctors still haven’t said what really happened to my daughter and what killed her,’ Brandão’s mother, Thays Brandão, told Brazilian news outlet G1.
Millena Brandão reported headaches, leg pain, tiredness, loss of appetite, and fainting since April 24.
During that time, she visited a city urgent care centre and two São Paulo state-run hospitals.
Doctors initially thought the young model had dengue fever, but subsequent tests discovered a brain tumour.
Millena Brandão made her acting debut on SBT [Brazilian Television System] in October 2023, appearing in ‘A Caverna Encantada [The Enchanted Cave] and ‘A infância de Romeu e Julieta’.
Thays Brandão, who also has a two-year-old daughter, questioned the doctors’ treatment for her daughter.
On April 24, a physician at the state-run Pedreira General Hospital treated Millena Brandão for a headache and informed the grieving mother that her child had ‘dengue fever.’
‘But he didn’t do any tests. He told us to take her back home and give her dipyrone,’ Thays said.
Millena Brandão left a modelling event on April 26 owing to leg pain. She was sent to Pedreira General Hospital for examinations, but no concerns were found. She was advised to rest at home, according to her mother.
On April 28, the family planned to attend mass at a local church, but Millena Brandão reported headaches, no appetite, and drowsiness, prompting them to return home.
Millena Brandão fainted in the restroom after having dinner at home on April 29.
Her parents took her to Maria Antonieta Urgent Care Facility, where she tested negative for COVID-19, H1N1, and dengue fever but was diagnosed with ‘a urinary tract infection’ and prescribed medication.
‘She arrived with her unconscious in my husband’s arms. Then, she opened her eyes and regained consciousness,’ Thays Brandão recalled.
Staffers recommended that she be sent to a state-run medical centre in São Paulo, the state capital.
Late Millena Brandão’s mum, father and sibling.
Credit: @jampressSource: Instagram
Thays Brandão stated that one of the nurses chastised a crying Millena Brandão, who asked for assistance.
‘She told her not to scream, that the pain wouldn’t go away like that,’ the mother said.
Millena Brandão underwent intubation at Granjaú General Hospital on April 29 due to her first heart arrest.
‘Her lip turned purple. Then they resuscitated her and intubated her. From that day on, she never woke up again,’ Thays Brandão said.
She felt the hospital lacked the necessary staff to care for her daughter because there was no neurologist on site.
‘They only did a CT scan, and the doctors said they saw a 5-centimeter mass in her brain,’ she said. ‘But they don’t know if this mass was a tumor, a cyst, an edema, a clot … because they couldn’t open her head to see.’
Thays Brandão asked why the staff at Maria Antonieta Urgent Care Facility did not send her to Hospital das Clínicas, where specialists are available.
‘She got worse, with two to three cardiac arrests per day. She had 13 arrests in total. She had never had that before,’ she said. ‘There was one day when she had seven respiratory arrests. Sometimes they gave her massages and other times they gave her shocks [with a device called a defibrillator].’
Source: TheTalk.NG
