Disease prevents Pak boy from going to school

Mahad, a beta thalassaemia patient, with his father Haroon. Only hope for his permanent cure is a bone-marrow transplant.

Every morning, Mahad Haroon is the first to get ready for school, his bags all packed and his uniform crisply ironed. But the six-year old Pakistani boy diagnosed with beta thalassaemia has never made it to school - not even once.
A whopping $60,000 (approximately Dh220,000) is what stands between him and his school-going dream.
Undergoing chronic blood transfusion since he was six months old, Mahad's only hope for a permanent cure is a bone-marrow transplant. And the procedure costs more than Dh220,000, an amount beyond his family's reach.
"I am already struggling to make both ends meet. But I cannot watch my son suffer daily. That is why I am seeking help for his treatment," said the boys' father Haroon Rashid, a Pakistani and a driver in Abu Dhabi. He lives in a brick house in Baniyas along with his wife and two other children - Mohammed, 10 and Unab, 13. Mohammed is a minor-thalassaemia patient.
The desperate father has approached the UAE Red Crescent for financial support to cure his youngest son. He said his wife and children left Pakistan and came to Abu Dhabi three years ago seeking better medical facilities for Mahad.
The boy is currently undergoing blood transfusion every three weeks at the Sheikh Khalifa Medical Hospital.
 "After every transfusion, he gets weak and tired. That is why we were never able to send him to school. But every morning he insists on going (to school) with his siblings. It breaks my heart to tell him he cannot," the boy's mother Shehzaan told Khaleej Times.
The parents said Mahad's condition has worsened in the last six months after developing a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that results in gastrointestinal bleeding or bloody diarrhea.
"The diarrhea attack happens sometimes once in two weeks and lasts for days along with high fever. It is painful and he is unable to get out of bed," said Shehzaan, a housewife.
The regular blood transfusions have also resulted in iron overload in Mahad's blood, which needs to be controlled by daily medication.
The only available cure for his condition is stem cell transplant but the treatment is not available in the UAE.
The family has found a doctor at a hospital in Chennai, in India, who is willing to do the procedure for Mahad.
The challenge is also to find a suitable donor as the boy does not have a related matching donor. "There are many hurdles like getting visas to India, finding a suitable donor, and also raising funds. But I am willing to fight this battle for my son," said Rashid.
anjana@khaleejtimes.com

• Abu Dhabi