Tripura infant with 'two heads' gets new life

An eight-month-old Tripura infant got a new lease of life after doctors in a Kolkata hospital successfully removed in a rare, five-hour operation a second head growing on top of his head, a doctor said.

"Tofajjal was born with a rare deformity. There was a second head maturing on top of his head. The second head with parasitic twin weighed almost a kilo and had a brain tissue within it," neuro-surgeon Sisir Das told reporters here Sunday evening.

The surgery was conducted at Kolkata's Apollo Gleneagles Hospitals July 28. The healthy baby boy and his poor parents returned to Agartala Sunday.

"I have never operated on such a big lesion. It was a very critical operation and slightest slip-up during the vital surgery might have ended the life of the baby," said Das, who led the team of doctors.

"Just to deliver the kid back to his young mother was a challenge as they came all the way from a remote village of Tripura," he said.

"The baby was distressed by the rare disease called encephalomeningocele, found in one in 40,000-45,000 babies," said the neuro-surgeon, who also hails from Tripura.

Tofajjal's father Shah Alam Mia and mother Sabia Khatun, residents of Machima village in western Tripura, 70 km west of Agartala, were also present with the doctors at the Agartala Press Club here.

"After most of the doctors and relatives in Tripura told us that our baby would not be cured and he might die soon, we took him to Kolkata in a critical condition," said Shah Alam Mia, who works as a driver on a private vehicle.

Sabia Khatun said: "None said that my child would live. But with the blessings of Allah, I am taking him back home."