Zee Media Bureau
Vanagram : A "rarest of rare" surgery to separate nine-month-old conjoined Tanzanian male twins, Ericana & Eluidi, commenced at Apollo Hospitals today.
The hospital sources inform that the surgery commenced at around 9 in the morning and is still continuing now. It is scheduled to get over late in the night or early in the morning.
Dr Venkat Sripathi, Senior Consultant paediatric Urologist at the Apollo Hospitals had earlier said that this was going to be a complex surgery as spines of both the babies' are conjoined. Their anus, penises are also conjoined.
It was in June this year, 20-year-old Grace of Tanzania, first came to the hospital with her five-month old twin boys, looking to separate them, after she could not be helped in her home country. The government of Tanzania has come forward to support the treatment, which is expected to be about Rs 30 to 40 lakh.
While conjoined twins are seen one in 2,00,000 deliveries, 60 per cent of them are still born and another 35 per cent die within a few days or month of birth due to various causes, Sripathi said.
If this surgery is a success, the twins will again have to come back to India for another corrective surgery six months later, the doctors said.
