Musawar is a 6.7 years old from a small happy family living in Kabul, Afghanistan. His father is a dental Physician working in local dental clinic whereas mother is housewife. His two elder siblings were healthy and getting education in schools At the age of 3 months, he was diagnosed as Thalassemia Major at the French Medical Institute for Mothers and Children (FMIC) an Agha Khan Hospital in Kabul. Since then, he needed blood transfusion after every 25 to 30 days, he received his treatment from FMIC for about 4 years, but due to the non- affordability the family started transfusion at home after getting blood product from FMIC. In 2016, they visited Shifa International Hospital and Pakistan Institute Medical sciences to explore the possibility of Bone marrow Transplant. After HLA typing, they have found that his eldest sister was 100% HLA compatible with Munawar. There his father met the family of successful post BMT patient, who guided them about Cure2Children Foundation and BMT center in Dr Akbar Niazi teaching hospital (ANTH). Family was informed about cost of BMT and partial funding of transplant by DKMS. Family was satisfied with hospital, doctors and staff, so decided to arrange funds and go ahead with Musawer’s transplant in ANTH. Father has tried to get treatment sponsorship from Afghanistan government but later on arranged funds from their own sources. Family shifted to Pakistan in March 2020, and rented small house in Bhara Kahu Islamabad near hospital. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19 pandemic his BMT was delayed till September 2020. During this period, family was very stressed and confused as they want to go back to their country but after counselling of doctors and other team members, they decided to stay until BMT done. During pre- transplant workup he was diagnosed as infected by Covid-19 infection, which was another shock for family and also BMT team. As Musawar was asymptomatic, therefore he was isolated in home for 15 days and became negative after 15 days. On 11th August 2020, he got Admitted in BMT Unit and has successfully gone through BMT. On 24th Sep 2020 he was discharged from Hospital. Family was very happy. The major problem according to Musawar during admission period, was he felt anger because of interrupted internet service in hospital, rest all was fine. Family has to stay near hospital for another 9-10 months, therefore they are missing their home, country and also face difficulty in communication due to loss of father’s job in home country and language barrier. Posted with Musawar 's family permission.

 

Sana Sultani - sufferer of Beta Thalasemia Major. Desperate to get her an unrelated bone marrow transplant, we almost did the opposite what we set out to do. While Sana's condition is potentially fatal. She is does not have the grim prognosis we were led to believe by the money hungry hospital. We realised that Drs who tried to perform a (100,000 USD) operation, were ignoring the fact that the risks outweigh the benefits.