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Kurdistan: Second group of children to fly
to Italy for life-saving treatment
18.10.2006 |
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Kurdistan Region
(Iraq), October 18 ,-- , 59 children from the
Kurdistan Region with life-threatening illnesses
will fly to Italy on Saturday to receive
specialist treatment that cannot be provided at
home.
The children, who will be sent on a specially
chartered plane, could die in the near future unless
they receive expert care.
Providing care for the children during their trip
and treatment will be 62 family members, nine
Kurdish doctors and 11 Italian doctors and health
personnel.
The children suffer from congenital heart disease,
cancer or leukaemia.
This is the second flight taking children to Italy
for life-saving treatment. The first one last June
took 52 children from the Kurdistan Region.
The whole project was made possible by the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) and the Italian
Government, through the Mediterranean Institute of
Haematology (MIH), and upon the initiative of KRG
Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.
The Kurdish NGO Heevi, through its children’s
section called Nazdar, collected data on the
patients and made preparations for the trip in
cooperation with the KRG’s Ministry for Health and
assisted by local NGOs such as Kurdistan Save the
Children. Heevi is also funding the travel costs.
An Italian medical team from the Mediterranean
Institute of Haematology last August examined 300
children to select the most urgent cases. Nine
Kurdish Doctors will also go to Italy at the same
time for training in those illnesses.
The Mediterranean Institute of Haematology has
offered to provide a revolutionary treatment using
bone marrow transplants for the thalassemia and
cancer cases. As the children receiving them will
have to stay in Italy for a year until the therapy
is finished, they will travel with their families
and bone marrow donors.
Some of the children will receive operations for
congenital heart disease.
The Kurdistan Region suffers from very a high rate
of severe congenital diseases, which so far remain
unexplained and could have been caused by the
policies of Saddam Hussein’s regime over several
decades.
Later this year a third flight will take another
group of patients for treatment.
krg org
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