Pakistani toddler cured of rare disease at Bengaluru's Narayana Health City

Bengaluru: A two -year- old toddler from Pakistan, Zeenia, recently underwent a bone marrow transplant that cured her of the rare Hemaphagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) disease, at Bengaluru’s Narayana Health City. The disease left her bone marrow without enough white blood cells and highly prone to infections.

The little girl's father, Zia Ulla, a marketing and sales professional from Sahiwal near Lahore in Pakistan, tried a few hospitals in Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi but found that they were wary of doing the Haploidentical Stem Cell Transplant needed to cure her. “We did not want to risk Zeenia’s life and were looking for hospitals that had done  such transplants in the past when a friend suggested Narayana Health City,” he recounted.

While the obvious choice for a bone marrow donor was a sibling, Zeenia's parents believed their seven-and-a-half month old son was too young to be put under such pressure.  But on arriving at Narayana Health City, they were told Ryan could safely donate some of his bone marrow to his little sister and so in August 2016, his first stem cell was extracted, making him the youngest donor in the country.

“Since the donor  was very young, we decided to extract the marrow in two phases separated by six weeks so that his health was in no way  compromised. Then by using small marrow extraction needles and with the assistance of our able team of anesthetists and others, we successfully extracted enough marrow to help cure Zeenia,” explained DR Sunil Bhatt, senior consultant and head of the Paediatric Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant unit at the Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Centre, Narayana Health City.

Although the hospital has done some 650 odd transplants, it has treated only some three cases similar to Zeenia’s in the past. But it was successful in doing the transplant and the child, who was admitted to the hospital for five weeks, was discharged a month ago, fully cured.

Zeenia's grateful father says he will one day bring his daughter back to the city to meet the doctors who gave her another shot at life. The family also intends to remain in touch with the doctors and regularly update them about Zeenia’s health.

 "Once we return  to Pakistan we want to start an online page and share our story with the public at large. The page will also act as a platform to create awareness about the illness and the possible treatments," added Mr Zia.