Yahoo – AFP,
January 31, 2016
A Bangladeshi father dubbed "Tree Man" for massive bark-like warts on his hands and feet will finally have surgery to remove the growths that first began appearing 10 years ago, a hospital said Sunday.
Abul Bajandar, 26, dubbed "Tree Man" for massive bark-like warts on his hands and feet, sits at Dhaka Medical College Hospital in Dhaka on January 31, 2016 (AFP Photo/Munir Uz Zaman) |
A Bangladeshi father dubbed "Tree Man" for massive bark-like warts on his hands and feet will finally have surgery to remove the growths that first began appearing 10 years ago, a hospital said Sunday.
Abul
Bajandar, from the southern district of Khulna, was undergoing preparations for
the surgery to cut out the growths weighing at least five kilogrammes (11
pounds) that have smothered his hands and feet.
A team of
doctors has been formed to perform the
operation at DMCH, Bangladesh's largest
state-run
hospital, which has decided to waive costs of the
treatment (AFP Photo/Munir Uz Zaman)
|
"But
slowly I lost all my ability to work. There are now dozens of two to three inch
roots in both my hands. And there are some small ones in my legs," said
Bajandar who was forced to quit working as a bicycle puller.
A team of
doctors has been formed to perform the operation at DMCH, Bangladesh's largest
state-run hospital, which has decided to waive costs of the treatment.
Tests are
underway to ensure Bajandar's root-like warts can be removed surgically without
damaging major nerves or causing any other health problems.
The massive
warts, which first started appearing when he was a teenager but began spreading
rapidly four years ago, have been diagnosed as epidermodysplasia verruciformis,
an extremely rare genetic skin disease that makes the person susceptible to
skin growths.
"Popularly
it is known as tree-man disease," DMCH director Samanta Lal Sen told AFP.
"As far
as we know there are three such cases in the world including Abul Bajandar. It
is the first time we have found such a rare case in Bangladesh," he said.
An
Indonesian villager with massive warts all over his body underwent a string of
operations in 2008 to remove them.
Bajandar's
elder sister, Adhuri Bibi, said hundreds of people have visited their home in
Khulna over the years to see the "Tree Man".
"Even
here at the hospital, hundreds have already gathered," she told AFP.
Bajandar, a
father of one, said he tried cutting the warts when they first appeared, but it
was extremely painful.
"After
that I went to a village homeopath and herbal specialist. But those medicines
only worsened my condition."
He also
consulted doctors in neighbouring India, but he and his family could not afford
the cost of the operation there.
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