KARACHI, Sept 27: A team of surgeons at the National Institute of Child Health is planning to perform a major surgery on an infant to separate him from a parasite having several limbs. The hospital’s surgeons claim that the one-month-old boy represents a case of “conjoined pair of twins, one of which is a parasite”.

The team’s lead surgeon — Dr Iftikhar Jan — told Dawn on Saturday that the baby was suffering from pneumonia.

“Actually the infant is suffering from a chest infection. We were planning to operate upon the child today to remove the parasitic portion. But later after careful examination we decided that surgery should not be performed right now.”

Dr Jan said the operation would be undertaken as soon as the boy’s condition permitted.

He said several of the valves in the boy’s heart were closed. “This is why the surgery would be a very difficult one.” The surgeon said a team of doctors from the National Institute of Cardio-Vascular Diseases had consented to help in the surgery.

Dr Jan claimed that the parasite was “an incomplete baby” of sorts. That is, it is deficient in many vital organs like heart and mind. “We feel that this ‘half baby’ will die after surgery even though at present his limbs seem to be in perfect shape.”

Meanwhile, the hospital’s paramedical staff said the infant’s parents had come over to Karachi from Multan only recently. “Here the mother gave birth to this rather unusual child.”

In response to a question, he said Dr Jan was confident that he would succeed in saving the life of one child.