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Separated Kenyan twins see each other for the first time


Baby Blessing and Favour saw each other’s face for the first time on Tuesday  since birth.

The two girls were attached at the lower back facing opposite directions and had walked side by side for two years.

The two-year-olds were separated in a 23-hour historic surgery by a team of 50 medics drawn from the Kenyatta National Hospital and University of Nairobi’s School of Health Science.

Kenyatta National Hospital chief paediatric surgeon, Dr Fred Kambuni said: “It will take time before they get accustomed to seeing one another and we are hoping that it will be well.”

CLOSE MONITORING

Dr Kambuni added that the children, who will still be under close monitoring, have been recuperating well.

“At the ward, they will undergo physiotherapy, nutritional and occupational therapies to enable them learn how to function separately,” he added.

The twins spent 13 days at KNH Intensive Care Unit where they were recuperating after undergoing a 23 hour-round-the-clock surgery.

After being stabilised, the medics transferred them from the ICU to the paediatric ward to continue with the recovery process.

Their mother, 29-year-old Caroline Mukiri, could not stop smiling as she helped the nurses wheel the girls into the ward.

FIRST OF ITS KIND

Doctors at the hospital successfully separated the conjoined twins in a delicate operation hailed to be the first of its kind in sub-Sahara Africa.

The team of 60 specialists, among them neurosurgeons and plastic surgeons was led by Mr Kambuni and the University of Nairobi’s head of neurosurgery.

The twins have been admitted at KNH’s specialised surgical paediatric ward for two years, with doctors waiting for their key organs to develop and to gain appropriate muscles that can withstand surgery.

The hospital said it would foot the bill that is estimated to be Sh160 million.