Blind British toddler, Joshua Clark, 22 months, has been flown to China for stem cell therapy to improve his sight.
Joshua was diagnosed last May with optic nerve hypoplasis. The treatment may help him to detect light. Joshua will have to be in hospital for 40 days, during which time he’ll receiving eight stem cell treatments. He’ll also have physiotherapy and acupuncture.
When Joshua and his family return to the UK, he’ll spend an hour each day, for 12 months, inside a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. The chamber is about seven foot by three foot. “The idea is that the oxygen will help Josh improve further and we’ll take toys and a CD player in there to entertain him,” his mum Joanna Clark has said previously.
While the success of the treatment is uncertain, mum Joanna has said “I couldn't have lived with myself unless we'd done everything possible for him to try it.”
Joanna also said, “It works better in young children, and this is his only chance.”
More than £40,000 was raised to help him have the treatment in Shanghai, China, and to pay for the oxygen chamber.
