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Liver transplant boy evacuated
19/07/2006 10:17 - (SA)
Beirut - A Los Angeles mother of two stranded in Lebanon who pleaded for her family's evacuation because her son was running out of medication vital to his transplanted liver finally got her wish.
Rima Issa and her two young children will be transported on Wednesday to Cyprus, according to her husband. When the Issa family will return to the United States is still unknown.
Nine-year-old Noureddine, a transplant patient vacationing in Lebanon, had only a six-day supply of his medicine left after an explosion from an Israeli air strike made him drop a bottle of his medication.
"Without his medications, he cannot live," said his father Amer Issa.
Noureddine had a liver transplant in 1997 when he was seven months old and ever since takes an anti-rejection drug twice a day. The drug, Prograf, is not available in Lebanon, Rima Issa told The Associated Press.
"I've been to almost every pharmacy and been told it had never been heard of in Lebanon," she said.
Loss of liver transplant or death
Noureddine's doctor, Sue McDiarmid of the University of California, Los Angeles, even intervened on the family's behalf.
In a letter to the US Embassy in Beirut dated Monday, McDiarmid pleaded for officials to help evacuate Noureddine and his family.
"I understand he has less than a week of medicines remaining. Should he run out of these it can lead to loss of the liver transplant and death," wrote McDiarmid, who has been caring for Noureddine since he was six months old.
After his life-saving transplant, Noureddine recovered well, but later developed a blood vessel complication that could lead to sudden intestinal bleeding.
"I feel somewhat helpless," said McDiarmid, who has called government officials on the family's behalf.
"I understand it's chaotic in a war zone. But he's a vulnerable child and you want to protect such children."
Rima Issa, Noureddine and her daughter Farah, 12, arrived in Lebanon on June 15 and had been due to leave on August 19. Issa's husband, 44-year-old businessman Amer Issa, stayed back in Los Angeles.
Rima Issa, an American citizen of Lebanese origin, said she requested to be evacuated with her family last Thursday, the second day of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. Later that day she called the embassy and told a consular official of Noureddine's case.
- AP
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