13-year-old Nagina was born in a rural area of Nepal with a hereditary condition called ichthyosis.
Due to ichthyosis, the skin of patients is severely flaky and looks like fish scales. Keratinization of the skin is expressed in varying degrees - from a barely noticeable roughness of the skin to the most severe changes in the epidermis, sometimes incompatible with life. Dermatologists distinguish between at least twenty-eight different forms of the disease.
The girl's family is very poor and they have no opportunity to treat the child. Their earnings are barely enough for food. Nagina has one of the most severe forms of ichthyosis, her toes are twisted and immobilized and she cannot walk. When the paramedics found her, she was constantly in a small shed, immobilized and not speaking.
Now her condition has improved slightly, her skin is regularly smeared with petroleum jelly. The girl was recently discharged from the hospital and started attending school. Before, Nagina not only could not speak, she could not even smile. She was in constant depression. Now she has friends and has learned to smile.
The doctors pledged to provide her with supplies of petroleum jelly for life for her skin. For ichthyosis patients from poorer countries like Nepal, moisturizing the skin with petroleum jelly to soften the scales is essentially the only treatment available, but often patients are so poor that they cannot even buy a tube of petroleum jelly.
“Vaseline just saved her,” says Dr. Bibek Banscot, from the center for the treatment and rehabilitation of disabled children, where Nagina spent five months. “The difference between what was and what has become is incredible. When I found out that we can really help her, I was the happiest person in the world.
Every day, the nurses carefully wrapped Nagina's body in gauze bandages soaked in Vaseline. They gave the girl a lot of care and love.
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In the center, Nagina met other disabled children. She currently lives in a Nepalese boarding school for children with disabilities, funded by the hospital where she was treated.
“She's a flamboyant personality,” says Dr. Banscott. “She's very adaptable and has better handwriting than mine, despite her deformed fingers.