Mother seeks more help for 3-year-old fighting severe aplastic anaemia in India

The mother of the 3-year-old girl who is undergoing treatment in India for severe aplastic anaemia is once again seeking assistance to buy her medication and treatment at the hospital.

Severe aplastic anaemia is a serious condition where the bone marrow, which is responsible for making blood cells, does not produce enough new blood cells.

It can be life-threatening if not treated, and treatment often involves blood transfusions, medications, or a bone marrow transplant.

Vihaana was diagnosed in March in India and since then, has undergone multiple blood transfusions, bone marrow transplant twice, battled severe fever and is now admitted for pneumonia.

Her mother Madhvi Poonam says unfortunately the weather in India is getting worse as it is getting colder and the air pollution is quite bad.

She says Vihaana got admitted again on the 18th of November for pneumonia and is in the paediatric ICU.

She says because she had bone marrow transplant transplant twice, her immune system is very weak and prone to infections - even when they take a lot of precautions.

Poonam, who is also a doctor, says her major hindrance to recovery is a complication called TA-TMA (Transplant associated-thrombotic microangiopathy) which is when small blood clots form inside blood vessels and causes platelets to get destroyed and so her platelet counts remain low.

She says the doctors are giving a medicine called Eculizumab for this complication (it's a weekly injection) but it's very expensive because it's not made in India and it costs them a minimum of US$2500 a week.

Poonam says this gets triggered with every new infection and recently, the doctors have increased the dosage to twice per week because it's becoming difficult to control

She says Vihaana also needs platelet transfusions at least once a week.

Poonam says they are hoping to get enough funds to support this maintenance Eculuzimab injection and bring at least a month or two of her supply of medicine back to Fiji.

The desperate mother says they have unfortunately exhausted their existing funds and need a bit of help in settling their existing bills for this admission.

She says they are trying to liaise with Vihaana's doctors to see when they think she will be fit enough to fly as they wanted to return to Fiji before the actual Indian winter sets in, which will make things even more hard for Vihaana's recovery.

Poonam says they are really appreciative of everyone that had reached out to help them last time and the funds really helped with the ICU costs and Vihaana's daycare admissions for blood and platelets transfusion and her outpatient follow up as well.

She says they need a bit of help in settling admission bills and get enough medications for Vihaana to last a month or two because most of the medications she is on is not available in Fiji, unfortunately.

If you want to help Vihaana come home safely, you can send money to her father, Vashneel Prasad's BSP bank account number 81265112 with the swift code BOSPFJFJ or to Poonam's Westpac bank account number 9801895633 with the swift code WPACFJFX.

You can also donate via their GoFundMe page: https://gofund.me/e06b1477 or givealittle.co.nz page https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/ray-of-sunshine-for-baby-vihaana

You can also send money via M-PAiSA on 9201105.