by Oge Okonkwo
Ajifa Khatun’s story could be something out of a horror movie but it is true indeed. At first glance she looks like a toddler but she is infact a 19-year-old teenager who stopped growing just before her second birthday.
Ajifa weighs just 1st 3lbs, plays with her siblings and mother, still needs to be spoon-fed and carried every where.
Her mother, 42-year-old Apila gave birth to a healthy baby girl in 1994 who stared to walk and talk months later. Suddenly, her development stalled.
Daily Mail reports:
Doctors initially told her mother and father, Sekh, 52, that Ajifa would start growing again.
They then blamed cancer for her condition, before suggesting that it could be a hormone disorder and the family are still at a loss as to why Ajifa is how she is.
Scientists believe that Ajifa could have Laron Syndrome, a rare genetic condition, which is believed to have affected just 300 people across the globe – with a third of them living in in remote villages in Ecuador’s southern Loja province.
People living with Laron lack a hormone called Insulin-like Growth Factor 1, or IGF-1, which stimulates the cell to grow and divide to form new cells.
Too much of the hormone can lead a person to develop breast, prostate or bowel cancers at an early age, meaning people with Laron will never get cancer, or diabetes.
‘Ajifa is likely to maintain her childlike features for the majority of her life,’ Tam Fry from the Child Growth Foundation told The Sun. Mr Fry believes Ajifa ‘probably’ has Laron Syndrome.
Ajifa’s younger sisters Rini, 17, Rabiya, 14, and brother Danish, eight, now tower over her, while her vocabulary extends only to ‘maa’, for mother, ‘baba’ for father, and ‘didi’ for sister.
She is physically and cognitively similar to a two-year-old, and has an IQ of less than 20.
Her condition bears an uncanny resemblance to a US woman, Brooke Greenberg, who died in October last year aged 20 after puzzling doctors for years.
No formal diagnosis for Brooke’s condition was ever given, leading doctors to term it ‘Syndrome X’.
Instead of going to school or out to work like her peers and siblings, Ajifa, who live in Mirapar, West Bengal, India, passes the time playing with local children, only able to take a few baby steps without help.
‘She’s a delight and always has a smile on her face, but it’s heartbreaking to see her trapped in this life,’ Mrs Khatun told The Sun.
Her father said his ‘beautiful’ daughter is always smiling and brings joy to her family.
‘She doesn’t communicate much but she knows what’s going on around her,’ he said.
