9-year-old who suffered spine injury while playing recovers after treatment in Mumbai

Aurangabad-based Charan Salve, who suffers from haemophilia, was left completely immobilised; recovered after treatment at Mumbai’s KEM hospital

The nine-year-old Aurangabad boy with haemophilia, a rare blood condition in which blood does not clot, who was brought to Mumbai for medical treatment in September after he suffered severe spine injuries during a game of kho kho, returned home after what his doctors said was a remarkable recovery.

Charan is now able to walk and move his head, with support of a neck brace, but will need physiotherapy for the next three months.

On Wednesday evening, Charan Salve was excitedly waiting to board the 9pm train from Dadar station, as he was going home after nearly one and a half months.

Charan was brought to Parel’s KEM Hospital on September 21 after the injury during a game at school. Charan’s haemophilia made him bleed uncontrollably, and since he was not given blood clotting medicines in time, the injury left him completely immobilised. “Haemophilia patients are unable to produce proteins that clot the blood, and need to be injected with blood clotting factors within two hours of the injury,” said Dr Chandrakala S, head of haematology department, KEM Hospital, who treated Charan.

While he underwent a spine surgery on October 4 to remove a large blood clot in the spinal cord, doctors were unsure if he would ever recover fully. The brain and spinal cord forms the body’s central nervous system and the spinal cord passes messages from the brain to the rest of the body. Injury to the spinal cord affect could immobilise the body. But a month later, his doctors have termed Charan’s recovery as ‘miraculous’ and said he is back on his feet.

“Bleeding in the spinal cord is very rare. We see only 1-2% patients with bleeding like this. We were afraid that the surgery would have caused further nerve damage,” said Dr Chandrakala S.

“He was brought to the hospital 48 hours after the onset of neurological damage. When they brought him, he could not move his hands, legs and head,” she said.

Charan is now able to walk and move his head, with support of a neck brace, but will need physiotherapy for the next three months. In the meantime, doctors have also put him on prophylaxis treatment, which helps the blood to clot, and will prevent life-threatening bleeding in the coming month.

“Once he is put on prophylaxis treatment, he need not be rushed to the hospital on an emergency basis each time he bleeds, as the blood clotting factor is already injected,” said Dr Chandrakala S.

Dr Mamta Manglani, specialist in paediatric haematology, who was associate with Lokmaniya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, Sion, said, “Prophylaxis reduces severe haemophilia to mild or moderate. It reduces complications that result from such episodes. It also reduces bleeding in the target joints- a joint that has had recurrent bleeding episodes.”

While prophylaxis is the mainstay treatment for haemophilia in most counties, in India, only 2% of haemophilia patients get it, as the medicines are very expensive. “These drugs are very expensive as not many pharmaceuticals manufacture them. One unit of factor costs Rs30. A patient weighing 50kg needs at least 1,000 units in one session, which runs the costs in lakhs,” said Dr Chandrakala.