Hope of cure for Jharkhand’s Mohammad Kaleem, the Boy with the World’s Largest Hands (with video)

Staff correspondent, August 12, 2015, NewsCrunch

Eight-year-old Mohammad Kaleem from Jharkhand will be happy to lose his nickname as the Boy with the World’s Largest Hands.

He has successfully undergone the initial round of surgeries at GangaHospitalin Coimbatore, where Dr S Raja Sabapathy has given him a hope of a normal life.

The son of a wage labourer from a village, Chass, near Bokaro, Mohammad Kaleem hit international  headlines last year for his rare gigantic hands, due to a condition called proteus.

Almost a third of his body weight of 21 kgs came from the arms.

Mohammad Kaleem was bullied in his village for his deformity and the local school refused to admit him. The villagers thought he had devil’s hands, while Mohammad Kaleem was dependent on his parents to carry out even the simplest of tasks such as eating and washing.

A few foreigners, who chanced upon him, took his photos and posted them online. That led to a UK-based production house Barcroft media to make a short video on him last year, which went viral.

Channel 5 later commissioned Barcroft to make a full-length documentary on MK, tracking his life for over a year, which was aired in the UK recently.

The media attention around Mohammad Kaleem got Dr S Raja Sabapathy, chairman of plastic surgery, hand & microsurgery department, GangaHospital, interested in the case.

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Mohammad Kaleem has successfully undergone the initial round of surgeries at Ganga Hospital in Coimbatore,

The Times of India reports that the first surgery was performed in November on his right hand. Over a four hour-long surgery, the weight of his forearm came down by 50 per cent.

In January 2015, his fingers were operated upon to reduce their size. The doctors also removed the growth plates from his bones to ensure that the arm didn't grow further.

Encouraged by the results, the doctors are planning to operate his left hand as well.

Mohammad Kaleem is currently at Coimbatoregoing through physiotherapy learning to use his new hand. Now, the family is considering further surgery on Kaleem's left hand.