Diama, 11, no longer suffers from extreme pain and constant income thanks to a sister who was born after a process of genetic selection and that has “cured” her of sickle cell anemia, a serious hereditary disease, through a bone marrow transplant.
“Before I felt very bad, my stomach and bones ached, but Now I feel much betternow I can go to the playground at school when it’s cold and I can run in physical education”, Diama celebrated this Thursday during the presentation of this complex procedure carried out jointly by the Hospital de Sant Pau and the Puigvert Foundation. “Now I can eat a lot of chocolate,” he confessed with a smile.
His mother, Oulimata Ndiaye, has corroborated excitedly that “He is very well, he has no pain or complains about anything”so “we couldn’t be happier”.
The sickle cell anemia is a serious blood disease that is “typical of black patients with poor quality of life and a short life expectancy, 30-40 years“, explained the director of the Hematopoetic Transplant Unit of the Sant Pau Pediatric Service, Isabel Badell, at a press conference. “When they are 30 or 40 years old it is as if they were 70 and 80”, he clarified.
He has detailed that these patients suffer widespread bone pain and need treatment with strong painkillers, such as morphine, and hospital admissions, as well as nervous system complications, with the possibility of even strokes, among other dysfunctions. For these cases, the only solution at the moment is a bone marrow transplant, but Diama, when she arrived in Spain six years ago from Senegal with her family, did not have a compatible sister.
Faced with this situation, the Hospital de Sant Pau and the Puigvert Foundation They asked Diama’s mother to have another child through in vitro fertilization and genetically modified, so that she would be compatible and not have the disease. The sister, Sokna, was born in September 2019 and in April 2022 the bone marrow transplant could be completed for Diama, and she can now enjoy a normal life of an 11 year old girl.
“I didn’t think that day would come,” Diama acknowledged, who confesses that she is very happy to be able to lead a normal life without the constant pain she suffered.
Source: Lasexta
Ricardo is a renowned author and journalist, known for his exceptional writing on top-news stories. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he is known for his ability to deliver breaking news and insightful analysis on the most pressing issues of the day.
