Pakistani cricket commentator’s 2-year-old daughter with rare condition gets new lease of life in India

Pakistan cricket commentator Sikandar Bakht’s 2-year-old daughter Amyra Sikandar Khan got a new lease of life in Bengaluru. Suffering from a rare condition, the girl successfully underwent bone marrow transplant (BMT) at the city’s Narayana Health hospital. 

Hailing from Karachi, Bakht was the donor for his daughter who was cured of Mucopolysaccharidosis type 1 (MPS I), a rare condition. Sikandar Bakht is also a former international cricketer who played in 26 Tests and 27 ODIs for Pakistan between 1976 and 1989.

"Mucopolysaccharidosis is a rare condition that has the potential to impact the functioning of multiple organs including eyes and brain," Narayana Health’s Chairman and Founder Devi Shetty was quoted as saying on Wednesday. 

In this rare condition, a crucial enzyme is missing in the body of the patient. Due to the absence of the enzyme, the person develops "a lot of changes in the body, the liver and spleen becomes big, bones change", Dr Sunil Bhat who treated the child said.

The condition which she was suffering from can leave most such children handicapped by the age of 19 and dead in the second decade of their life, the doctor said.  

Amyra, who is 2.6 years old, was saved by the treatment which used her cricket commentator father’s bone marrow. 

“The girl did not have any siblings and we looked for an unrelated donor but that was also not available. That's why we chose to use one of the parents as donor, which is known as half-matched donor transplant,” Dr Bhat said.

The girl was found doing well after four months of the transplant procedure and the missing enzyme has started to normalise in her body. The parents had no idea about the disorder but Amyra’s mother Sadaf researched to understand it and then approached Dr Bhat. The doctors and the para-medical team were quite approachable, Sadaf added.

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(With inputs from PTI)