mysterious flesh-eating virus baffles Doctors as it rots man's face

Painful: The man's ear has been completely devoured by the virus

Doctors admit they are baffled by a mysterious flesh-eating virus that has been rotting a man's face away - leaving him in agonising pain.

Huynh Van Dat has been unable to get a proper diagnosis for his illness, which has now left him bed bound and in constant distress.

Unbelievably, the video shows the man's condition in its relatively early stages, after it started eating away at his ear, leaving a huge open wound on the side of his head.

It is not clear exactly when the video was recorded.

Mr Dat, who lives in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, has been living with the condition for 11 years, and his health has gradually deteriorated over time.

The 51-year-old is now no longer able to eat properly and cannot speak, although his mind is still thought to be intact, meaning he can still feel pain.

His wife, Huynh Thi Trieu said her husband's condition started back in 2004 when he began getting frequent nosebleeds at least three to four times a day.

She said: "He was taking traditional medicines but they didn't make any difference, and then he also started to have problems with his eyes which were constantly watering."

Dat went to Hoa Hoa Hospital for examination where doctors realised there was a problem with his nose partition which was diagnosed as a deviated nasal septum, and immediately operated on it.But it did not seem to slow the pace of the disease and a year later the poor man discovered that whenever he drank water, it ran into his nose through a hole in the roof of his mouth.

Several months later, the hole got bigger and spread to the nose partition.

In a panic, Dat went to Van Hanh Hospital, where doctors said he suffered from nose bridge failure and performed a second surgery - which, again, did nothing to help.

Dat then saw doctors at the Pharma University and the Vietnam-France Hospital.

They all said that he had had nose bridge failure which was a disease that could be cured, but at a cost that he could not afford.

He continued to pay what he could but when the money ran out, he returned home once again and tried to get by using traditional medicine based on herbs he could find locally.

Since his story appeared in the local media, a group of baffled doctors have agreed to take Mr Dat on as a patient and promised to do what they could to help in order to reduce his suffering.