Pakistan’s ‘solar kids’ start moving at night

Islamabad: The Pakistani brothers known as “solar kids” because of their strange affliction that leaves them paralysed at sundown, have acquired some mobility thanks to a neurotransmission treatment.

“Late Wednesday… they started moving. They stepped upstairs for the first time in 13 years. They drank water themselves,” Muhammed Hashim, the father of the two boys, told EFE.

“I cried out of joy,” said Hashim, explaining that his sons, Shoaib Ahmed and Abdul Rasheed, 9 and 13 years old, have suffered from this baffling disease since birth.

The deputy rector of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad, Javed Akram, said although the treatment with neurotransmitters was being seen as a success, the doctors will continue studying the disease.

The institute has also enlisted help from foreign institutions, including the University of Maryland in the US where blood samples of the boys were sent.

Meanwhile, Shoaib and Abdul are travelling with their father on Friday to Lahore to undergo genetic DNA studies although more than 300 tests have already been carried out on them so far.

“The use of neurotransmitters was a step forward. Now we hope that their DNA analysis will give us more information on the disease and new methods to combat it,” said Akram.

The case of Shoaib and Abdul has puzzled Pakistani doctors who say it may be due to the fact that the parents are cousins. In Pakistan, it is a common practice for cousins to marry.

Hashim, a security guard, has six children, three of whom suffer from this disease, while their fourth son and two daughters are unaffected.