UA girl who was born deaf was able to hear for the first time thanks to an experimental treatment carried out by the British National Health System (NHS). Opal Sandy was the first person in the world to undergo the treatment.
The girl was treated just before her first birthday and, six months later, she can hear sounds as soft as a whisper. In addition, she is already starting to say her first words: ‘mummy’, ‘daddy’ and ‘uh-oh’, says the BBC.
Opal was born with auditory neuropathy, a lack of synchrony in the passage of electrical stimulation through the auditory pathways, which made her deaf.
The treatment that Opal has now received is administered in the form of an infusion into the ear, and consists of replacing the defective DNA with a functional copy. The results are in sight.
The girl was part of a list of patients who were recruited by the NHS to undergo experimental treatment. She was, however, the first to try it.
Her parents, Jo and James, from Oxfordshire, say the results have been extraordinary, but allowing Opal to be the first to test this treatment was extremely difficult.
The girl, from Oxfordshire, was treated at Addenbrooke’s hospital. According to The Guardian, more deaf children from the United Kingdom, Spain and the USA are being recruited for the trial, who will be followed for five years.
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