LAHORE (Staff Report) – Two brothers were dubbed the “solar kids” due to their rare condition which had kept Pakistani doctors baffled for long.
Aged nine and 13, Shoaib Ahmed and Abdul Rashid were normal active children during the day. But once the sun went down, they both lapsed into a vegetative state – unable to move or talk – like ‘half dead’.
Their rare condition earned them the name “solar kids” among locals.
Luckily the brothers, who were undergoing extensive medical testing in Islamabad on government expense, have been successfully treated at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), according to media reports.
The efforts by doctors proved quite fruitful as the children appeared to be normal again on Friday night, the first time they were seen playing and behaving like regular children after sundown, according to PIMS Vice Chancellor and Head of medical board, Dr. Javed Akram.
Samples of their blood have been sent to overseas specialists for further examination. Researchers are also collecting soil and air samples from the family’s home village in Balochistan for research.
Father of the affected children, Mohammad Hashim, was overjoyed after his children’s successful treatment.
The family comes from a village near Quetta. Hashim had married his first cousin and had six children together. Two of them died at an early age. The other two children have not displayed any unusual symptoms.
The successful treatment gives a new hope to the impoverished family. “I will become a teacher,” Shoaib Ahmed told media at the hospital, while his younger brother said he wanted to become an Islamic scholar.
