ability to see ... and "Professor Al-Hazaa" explains the details of the operation!
A year after the success of the rare surgery to revisit a Saudi girl as the first advanced and rare operation in the Middle East by a Saudi medical team led by Professor Salwa Al-Hazaa and Dr. Muhammad Khathaila, in a national achievement that confirms the elevation and progress of the Kingdom and the countries'' confidence in its health and medical capabilities The 10-year-old girl "Ghadi", who was suffering due to the "hereditary night blindness" disease, expressed her happiness and pleasure in regaining the ability to see, and to carry out her daily life naturally after years of suffering!
The girl "Ghadi" on the program "Good Morning Arabs" on mbc channel thanked Dr. Al-Hazaa and the medical team for helping her eyesight, noting that she deals with her mother and not her doctor!
She explained her suffering before the operation, saying: "I did not have the ability to see and write on the keyboard, and now, thank God, I can do it myself, solve my duties on my own, and even be able to walk in the dark without assistance!"
On the other hand, Professor Dr. Salwa bint Abdullah Fahad Al-Hazaa, chief consultant in ophthalmology, warned of the high rate of hereditary diseases in the Kingdom, Gulf countries and the Middle East compared to abroad, adding: "I studied my specialty (genetic diseases) abroad, and I did not notice the amount of diseases. Genetic heritage as I saw it in Saudi Arabia, and this is unfortunately due to inbreeding!
"Al-Hazaa" indicated that the hereditary night blindness disease resulting from a defect in the gene (RPE65), for which the treatment was discovered, suffers from "glandular" and more than 30 children in the Kingdom, and is a very large number compared to the number of cases abroad!
She expressed her wish that every child who suffers from night blindness disease, and who suffers from this genetic mutation, be treated, God willing.
Regarding her relationship with the child "Ghadi", "Al-Hazaa" stated that she had been in her clinic since she was a year old, adding: "When this treatment came, I considered that I am giving it to my daughter."
Al-Hazaa described her feeling of the success of the operation as "I lived the happiest moments as it was completed by seeing the girl’s father fall down in prostration to God thanking and praising him for this blessing."
Al-Hazaa pointed out that "the preparations for the operation took two years to refuse to bring the treatment to Saudi Arabia, but we have proven that our country is able to give this complex and difficult treatment, and its validity is only 4 hours."
She expressed her thanks to the surgeon, Dr. Muhammad Khathaila, stating that "the operation requires surgeons to be present, and we had to travel to Paris to be trained in treatment, and upon our return to the Kingdom, we had to give pharmacists courses and training for a week, mediated by specialists from France, Switzerland and Germany!"
Al-Hazaa concluded, saying: "More than seven months ago, we had no contact with my ghadi child for separation measures due to the Coronavirus, and as soon as I met her, I was surprised that she was analogous to me and puts her eyes in my eyes, and insists on holding my hand and leading me by herself!"
It is reported that the child "adenomyosis" was suffering from birth due to severe visual impairment, and after undergoing medical examinations at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and examining samples in the genetic testing laboratory, it was found that she had a rare genetic disease represented by a defect in the RPE65 gene, which requires her to be surgically injected with Luxturna Which was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Food and Drug Authority in the Kingdom recently.
It is reported that by performing this surgery locally, Saudi Arabia becomes the fifth country in the world to use this type of treatment in eye surgery.
