AIIMS doctors attempt to separate conjoined twins at head

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New Delhi: A team of doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi began a high-risk surgical procedure to separate conjoined twins Jaga-Balia of Odisha's Kandhamal district on Monday.

As per reports, the complex surgery which started at around 9 a.m, on Monday, August 28, 2017, was still on.

Reportedly, a team of 40 doctors is conducting the surgery which is the first of its kind in the country.

This attempt to separate them, if successful, will provide hope and test the frontiers of science, said a doctor.

Twins joined at the head are very rare, occurring once in 25 million live births, which is roughly the total number of births in India each year.

In the case of Jaga and Baliya, who are two years and three months old, the operation is more complicated because they share veins that return blood to the heart from the brain.