Islamabad: Pakistan has established contact with leading international universities, including The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA, and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, UK, to investigate and name a mysterious ailment which appears like a genetic disease but finds no description in medical literature worldwide to this day.
The need for such aggressive international networking has arisen after detection of the mysterious disease in three Pakistani siblings namely, Sohaib, Abdur Rasheed, and Ilyas, aged 14 years, 9 years, and 1 year, respectively.
The boys are from Mian Ghundi, a small village located at a distance of 45 kilometres from Quetta. The elder two are currently admitted at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), where a 19-member medical board has been tasked to investigate the disease in the light of over 300 diagnostic tests conducted over the last couple of days. The youngest son is still in Balochistan with his mother, who has previously lost two sons to the same disease.
The children’s father Yasin is a naib qasid in an IT university, and is married to his cousin. While all the couple’s sons are afflicted with the disease, their two daughters are absolutely healthy. Since the family does not have the resources to treat their children, the government has assumed ownership of the boys and has committed free treatment for them, be it within Pakistan or abroad.
“This is a huge opportunity for Pakistan to investigate and name the new disease. The peculiarity of this disease is that during day time, the boys remain active and playful, attend the ‘madrassa’, and engage in all kinds of activities. However, by sunset they become listless and paralysed, and go into a vegetative state, losing control over all their limbs including fingers, and barely able to speak or even open their eyes. The same cycle repeats itself every single day,” the vice chancellor of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University-PIMS, Professor Dr. Javed Akram, narrated. It is for this reason that the children were initially referred to as solar babies.
Dr. Akram stated that the PIMS-SZABMU genetic laboratory in Lahore is internationally renowned for having the largest group of researchers in genetic diseases and mental retardation. “The laboratory, which also has 19 PhD students conducting research, has already obtained genetic and molecular samples for investigation. We are just the right group of people to investigate the disease,” he claimed, adding that even The Lancet has expressed keen interest in the cases.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Capital Administration and Development Division Dr. Tariq Fazal Chaudhry visited PIMS to inquire about the children. “We are in touch with all national and international institutions treating similar diseases. This particular disease has never been seen or heard of. The government has assumed complete ownership of these children, and all expenses of their medical treatment will be borne by it,” he announced.
