PESHAWAR, Feb 21: Doctors retrieved a male foetus from the abdomen of a two-month-old boy at the Khyber Teaching Hospital on Thursday.

“This is a unique and an unexpected development. I have never heard of this in the medical history of Pakistan,” said Dr Ikramuddin, a surgeon who operated on Mohammad Abbas.

The boy was brought to the hospital three weeks ago, from a village in Bajaur Agency, after suffering from bouts of vomiting and abdominal distension. A team of doctors recommended surgery, but did not operate on the baby because he was not fit for anaesthesia.

Abbas’s father then took the boy to Tangi village. But the boy again suffered spells of abdominal pain.

Zairullah, the father, once again brought the boy to the Khyber Hospital, where the doctors decided to perform surgery immediately.

Soon after the operation began, the surgeons found a male foetus, which had a developed chest, abdomen, upper and lower limbs. However, the brain had not formed yet.

“We know of eight such cases across the world, but it is definitively a first in Pakistan,” Dr Ikramuddin told Dawn.

The father was in a thankful mood. “I am extremely surprised, but happy that my son is showing signs of improvement after surgery,” said Zairullah, who had his left leg amputated at Lahore’s Shaukat Khanum Hospital six months ago.

Mohammad Abbas, the baby, is still weak and receiving blood transfusions as well as antibiotics.

Dr Ikram said the ‘other baby’ was attached to the “mesentery of (Abbas’s) small intestine through a pedicle supplying blood”.