Mexico’ star emerges from coma following bacterial infection
Manuel Masalva, the Mexican actor who starred as Ramón Arellano Félix on Netflix’s Narcos: Mexico, is sharing a positive health update after being placed in a medically induced coma for weeks.
In his first social media post since contracting an aggressive bacterial infection, he revealed that he ended up spending 105 days in a Dubai hospital. “I am healing. I want to profoundly thank you all for the support you have given me and continue to give me, in every sense, every one of you,” he wrote. “More than ever I believe that unity is strength.. This [process] has barely begun, there is much more left to go, but I feel blessed, strong, reborn and well-accompanied. … God has given me a new chance at life. God has given me new life.”
He continued, “Today is 105 days, but I am awake, and the light has been raining down since. 81 [days] it took for me to breathe fresh air, the coming and going of thousands of people in this great hospital, where I was reborn, here in another culture, that has surpassed us in love and spirituality.”
Masalva concluded his note by admitting he doesn’t fully understand “all of what’s going on or just a part of it,” but he is feeling very grateful in this moment. “It’s been an eternity and there are still some parts missing, I just want to give the strongest thanks that I can give to God, my family, my doctors and all those people that have supported me since the start of this process. I owe you all my life, without you and the hand of God it wouldn’t be real,” he wrote.
In April, the Los Angeles Times reported that Masalva first arrived in Dubai on March 18 after spending time in the Philippines, and within two days he noticed concerning internal discomfort and pain. After doctors discovered the bacterial infection causing his symptoms, he underwent emergency surgery on March 26, but by the next day the infection had reached his lungs, which prompted the medically induced coma.
Manuel Masalva in ‘Narcos: Mexico’.
Carlos Somonte/Netflix
“Doctors have said that Manuel is responding to the treatment to attack the bacteria and little by little his body is getting stronger,” Masalva’s agent Jaime Jaramillo Espinosa confirmed to Entertainment Weekly at the time. “There is daily encouraging news and it will be a matter of days or a couple of weeks before his health condition allows him to be taken off sedation and regain consciousness. For now, it is a matter of waiting, as it is a slow process.”
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Masalva has starred in more than a dozen films and TV shows, including Narcos: Mexico, a fictional series about Mexico’s illegal drug trade. The series, which ended in 2021 after three seasons, also featured Diego Luna, Michael Peña, and Tenoch Huerta Mejía.
