"Life-saving siblings"
For the first time in India, a baby has been born to save his brother's life. The news has made headlines across the country and is being debated. The question also arises as to how moral it is to give birth to a brother or sister by correcting a genetic defect in order to save someone. Here is the report of BBC's Gita Pandey from Delhi:
Kaviya Solanki was born in October 2016. In March of this year, when he was one and a half years old, bone marrow was collected from his body and transplanted into the body of his seven-year-old elder brother Abhijit.
Abhijit was suffering from thalassemia. Infection with this disease results in a defect in the production of hemoglobin particles that carry oxygen in the patient's blood, resulting in a dangerous decrease in the amount of hemoglobin.
That is why Abhijit had to give a lot of blood.
"Everyy 25/30 days, he needed to donate 400 to 450 ml of blood. Before he reached the age of six, he was given blood 60 times," said his father, Sahadevsin Solanki.
The family lives in Ahmedabad, the largest city in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
"Abhijit was born after my eldest daughter. We were a very happy family. When she was just 10 months old we found out she had thalassemia. We all broke down. She was very weak. Her immune system was very weak," she said. He didn't work well and often got sick. "
"And when I found out that there was no cure for this disease, my pain doubled," he said. Mr. Solanki.
The way it started
She began to study the disease in order to understand why her child became ill. At the same time, he conducted extensive research to find out what kind of treatment it had and sought the advice of medical experts.
At one point he learns that there is a cure for the disease and that is a bone marrow transplant. Then he began to inquire into the matter in detail.
But the problem is that Abhijit's bone marrow did not match the bone marrow of any of the other members of this family. Even his older sister could not be matched.
Abhijit's father read an article in 2016 which spoke of "life-saving brothers and sisters".
It mentions the birth of a person's brother or sister who is suitable for organ, cell or bone marrow transplantation and is called a "life-saving brother or sister".
Then he became more curious about it and later a renowned fertility expert in India. Manish took refuge in a banker.
He then pressured the doctor to create a thalassemia-free fetus for the treatment of his son Abhijit.
Mr. Solanki said they chose to give birth to "life-saving brothers and sisters" because they had no other choice.
Caviar was born
Solanki's family was told by a hospital that they had found a matching tissue for a bone marrow transplant, but only in the United States.
The cost behind this will be very high - 50 lakh to one crore rupees.
Also, since the donor is not a relative of Abhijit, the probability of success is only 20 to 30 percent.
The technology that Kavya gave birth to is called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis.
In this method, the fetus is first examined to see if there is any disease in it, if any, then the gene responsible for it is identified and its defects are corrected.
This technology has been used in India for the last few years. However, this is the first time that a "life-saving sister" has been born in that country.
Dr. The banker said it took him about six months to create the embryo, screen it and test it to see if it matched Abhijit.
After that, when everything was fine, the fetus was placed in the mother's womb.
After birth
"After Caviar was born, we had to wait another 16 to 18 months for her weight to increase to 10/12 kg. Then the bone marrow was transplanted this March. We waited a few more months to see if Abhijit's body had received Caviar's bone marrow. To be sure, ”he said.
Mr. "Seven months have passed since the transplant and Abhijit has not had to donate any more blood since then," Solanki said.
"We recently tested his blood sample. His hemoglobin is now above 11. Doctors say he is well."
Dr. Abhijit's bone marrow transplant operation. Deepa Trivedi. Caviar's hemoglobin levels dropped after the transplant, he told the BBC. The result was pain for a few days in the area where the bone marrow was taken from. But now it's completely healed. "
"Kaviya and Abhijit- they are both perfectly healthy now," he said.
Mr. Solanki says the advent of Kavya has changed their lives radically.
"We love him more now than any other child. He is not only our child, he is also a life saver in our family. We will be forever grateful to him."
The first life-saving brother
The birth of such a life-saving brother or sister first occurred in the United States, 20 years ago. His name was Adam Nash. She was born to treat her six-year-old sister.
His sister Fanconi was suffering from an incurable disease called anemia. It is a genetic disease.
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