DMCH to examine boy with ageing condition

The four-year-old boy of Magura who looks like an 80-year-old man due to the premature ageing condition progeria, will be taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital today for treatment and medical research, said a doctor of Magura Sadar Hospital (MSH).

Bayezid Hossian has swollen face, wrinkled skin, hollow eyes, aching joints and other old-age signs including broken teeth.

He was released from MSH on Wednesday.

Bayezid's mother Tripti Khatun and father Lablu Shikder said their son was born four years ago with the face resembling that of an 80-year-old man.

The signs of old age are getting even clearer day by day, added the parents, who took their son to different physicians to get him cured, but to no avail owing to a lack of money.

A kind-hearted person after knowing about Bayezid's physical abnormality and the parents' financial hardship has, however, given them some money for taking him to Dhaka.

He was diagnosed with progeria by a five-member medical team of MSH, which later suggested sending him to DMCH for treatment and research by specialists.

Earlier, in 2010, another boy named Tuhin, then 12, was said to have been the first progeria patient in Bangladesh on record.

The word progeria comes from the Greek progeros meaning prematurely old. It is a rare genetic condition that accelerates ageing in children and occurs in one per 8 million live births.

There is no known cure for progeria, and few people around the world could exceed 13 years of age suffering from this disease.