A child suffering from a rare skin disease lives in Kazakhstan, due to which local residents and the media have already nicknamed the unfortunate lizard boy.
Zhasulan Korganbek from Kazakhstan suffers from a severe form of ichthyosis, which causes gray scales to form on his limbs and torso. The disease, which also affects his ears and face, can vary in severity depending on how sunny the weather is.
Despite the fact that the local media dubbed him the lizard boy, the name of the disease is derived from the ancient Greek word ichthyos - fish, due to the similarity to dead and flaky skin with fish scales.
Zhasulan inherited the disease from his mother Ulbibi, who carries the abnormal gene. Although the woman never showed signs of the disease, there was still a 50% risk of passing the defective gene to her children. This gene affects the rate at which the skin regenerates - either shedding old skin too slowly or producing new skin cells too quickly. Either way, it causes a build-up of rough, scaly skin.
Now, thanks to a fundraising program, Zhasulan is sent to Israel for treatment, which he hopes will help him lead a normal life, writes the British online edition Mail Online.
The generous sponsors, moved by the child's condition, donated about $ 40,000 to help pay for his treatment. While there is no way to prevent ichthyosis, the Israeli clinic the boy is sent to is a pioneer in treating the disease using lasers, creams and salt baths.
Zhasulan has already spent a month in a hospital in Almaty. Despite the fact that the doctors managed to achieve some success in the fight against the disease and to remove some of the scales from the boy's skin, Zhasulan will have a long treatment ahead.
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“I don't want to be a lizard. I want to be normal,”the boy told reporters this week.
His 26-year-old mother also hopes that treatment in Israel will help her son.
“I want my son to be healthy, to live a full, normal life like all other children. I am sincerely grateful to all those who helped us to go to Israel for treatment,”she said.