Six-year-old nearly dies from wrong injection

Fauzia’s disease generally treatable, condition exacerbated by use of the wrong injection.

MULTAN: A six-year-old girl is currently hospitalised and in critical condition after being administered the wrong injection by a quack.

According to Haji Pir resident Dadi Junda Mai, six-year-old Fauzia developed a severe skin allergy four days. Fauzia’s parents Naziran and Ghulam Shabbir took her to a local quack Ilyas, who administered an injection. “We could see the reaction almost immediately by the time we took her home her skin was bright red and her entire body was burning,” Shabbir said.

The next day Fauzia was brought to the Ibn-e-Sina private hospital and she was unconscious.

“Her condition has worsened considerably and it is hard to even look at her as her entire skin has begun peeling off,” Naziran said. Doctors at the hospital said that Fauzia was suffering from a staff infection known as Steven Johnson’s disease. “The condition is genetic and was exacerbated by the administering of the wrong injection,” said Dr Rabia, adding that Fauzia’s body was covered in rashes and that she was now bleeding. “She is in critical condition, even though the disease is generally treatable it takes nearly 6-8 months and the injection has made matters much worse,” she said.

Fauzia’s brother Aslam, said that the family had tried to register a case in thana Qadirpur Rawan but the police initially refused to file a case or accept an application. “They turned us away and then we went to the media. The moment the story broke on television the police registered the case,” Aslam said. The police registered a case against Ilyas under Section 337 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on Fauzia’s father’s directives.

Police officials visited Ilyas’s clinic but found it abandoned and said that he had run away. “He destroyed the place and health officials are unable to identify what injection he used,” Ghulam Shabbir said. Fauzia’s parents said that they would launch a protest if the local government did not take notice of the incident.

Multan executive district officer (EDO) health has refused to comment on the situation and doctors at the private hospital have said that Fauzia is currently in critical condition and has suffered third degree burns on 70 per cent of her body.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 22^nd, 2010.