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10<br />
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, <strong>2017</strong><br />
DT<br />
News<br />
New Rohingya refugees face<br />
extortion looking for shelter<br />
• Abdul Aziz, Cox’s Bazar<br />
CRISIS <br />
Moyamoya: A disease well fought in Bangladesh<br />
• Nawaz Farhin<br />
HEALTH <br />
In Japanese, the word “Moyamoya”<br />
means “puff of smoke,” but the disease<br />
it represents is a rare and progressive<br />
cerebrovascular disorder<br />
caused by blocked arteries at the<br />
base of the cranium. The meaning<br />
also describes the look of the tangle<br />
of tiny vessels formed to compensate<br />
for the blockage.<br />
Although Moyamoya is not very<br />
well known in Bangladesh, there<br />
are quite a number of patients who<br />
have been treated successfully at<br />
the National Institute of Neurosciences<br />
and Hospital (NINSH) in<br />
Dhaka’s Agargaon.<br />
Until now, 30 patients have undergone<br />
bypass surgeries in NINSH<br />
while only one of them has died.<br />
The first known Moyamoya<br />
patient in Bangladesh was diagnosed<br />
at Bangabandhu Sheikh<br />
Mujib Medical University hospital<br />
in 2012, according to a case report<br />
published in the Journal of Bangladesh<br />
College of Physicians and<br />
Surgeons that year.<br />
However, NINSH had its first patient<br />
in 2014 when seven-year-old<br />
Mohona Aktar from Kushtia was<br />
brought in.<br />
In the initial stage, the child was<br />
frequently suffering from sudden<br />
A group of Rohingya refugees living<br />
in Bangladesh are extorting the<br />
newly arrived refugees by providing<br />
them accommodation in seven<br />
new makeshift camps in different<br />
areas of Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban<br />
that they have set up with the<br />
locals’ help.<br />
These vested quarters, along<br />
with the so-called landowners,<br />
have been charging heavy sums for<br />
building small shanties occupying<br />
the forest lands.<br />
The new shelters have been<br />
built in Balukhali Dhalar Mukh,<br />
Taznirmarchhara, Shafiullah Kata<br />
and Hakimpara areas in Ukhiya,<br />
Hoai Kang and Noikhyang area in<br />
Teknaf, and in Naikhongchhari.<br />
More than 100,000 newly arrived<br />
Rohingya, who fled to Bangladesh<br />
following the latest military<br />
crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine<br />
state, have already occupied 450<br />
acres of forest lands in a bid to set<br />
up residence.<br />
Thousands of refugees are<br />
thronging towards these new shelters<br />
as the existing camps are already<br />
overcrowded.<br />
Farid Miah, 45, one of the refugees<br />
who came from Myanmar’s<br />
Maungdaw province, told the Dhaka<br />
Tribune that he was charged Tk2,000<br />
to get the permission to build a small<br />
hut with bamboo and polythene.<br />
Ali Kabir, divisional forest officer<br />
at Cox’s Bazar south zone,<br />
told the Dhaka Tribune that some<br />
muscular weakness, one of the<br />
first symptoms of the disease. She<br />
used to feel better after resting for<br />
a while, her family said. But two<br />
weeks later, she suffered temporary<br />
paralysis on one side of her body.<br />
Her family had taken her to several<br />
state-run hospitals in Kushtia,<br />
one of which later referred her to<br />
NINSH where she underwent brain<br />
surgery twice in the next two years.<br />
The second patient with<br />
Moyamoya disease who came in at<br />
NINSH one year later was another<br />
child named Jannatul Ferdousi Nupur,<br />
9, from Bogra.<br />
Her father Jahidur Rahman told<br />
the Dhaka Tribune: “Three years<br />
ago, one day, Nupur had fallen<br />
on the school grounds after having<br />
a seizure and couldn’t speak.<br />
Since then, this started happening<br />
to her from time to time. She was<br />
also having constant severe headaches.”<br />
Nupur was also treated initially<br />
at different local hospitals, doctors<br />
at one of which had told her parents<br />
about Moyamoya’s possibility.<br />
They also referred them to NINSH.<br />
Jahidur said: “Doctors had said<br />
Nupur will have to undergo brain<br />
surgery. In the last two years, doctors<br />
operated on her head twice.<br />
Nupur is better now and has also<br />
resumed school.”<br />
Dr Sudipto Kumar Mukherjee,<br />
local syndicates have been building<br />
slums for the Rohingya in the<br />
name of shelters.<br />
“We have been conducting drives<br />
to evict such newly-built slums. The<br />
existing camps have already acquired<br />
more than 600 acres of forest<br />
land. So, the latest occupation has<br />
become a matter of serious concern<br />
for the administration,” the forest<br />
department official said.<br />
the assistant professor at NINSH’s<br />
Department of Pediatric Neurosurgery,<br />
told the Dhaka Tribune:<br />
“In Nupur’s case, the disease was<br />
hereditary. We found out later that<br />
her mother had Moyamoya too.<br />
The symptoms and how<br />
The rare idiopathic vaso-occlusive<br />
disease is characterised by progressive<br />
irreversible occlusion, or<br />
blockage, of main blood vessels<br />
to the brain as they enter into the<br />
skull.<br />
Apart from muscular weakness,<br />
in children the first symptoms<br />
include stroke, or recurrent transient<br />
ischemic attacks (commonly<br />
referred to as “mini-strokes”), or<br />
paralysis affecting one side of the<br />
body, or seizures, according to National<br />
Institute of Neurological Disorders<br />
and Stroke (NINDS) at Maryland<br />
in the US.<br />
It says adults can also experience<br />
these symptoms, but more<br />
often suffer a hemorrhagic stroke<br />
due to bleeding into the brain from<br />
the abnormal vessels.<br />
NINDS says about one in 10 individuals<br />
with Moyamoya has a close<br />
relative who is also affected; in<br />
these cases researchers think that<br />
this disease is the result of inherited<br />
genetic abnormalities.<br />
In the rural areas in Bangladesh,<br />
villagers try to treat such problems<br />
Ukhiya Upazila Nirbahi Officer<br />
Md Mainuddin said no more camps<br />
or shelters would be allowed to be<br />
set up in the upazila.<br />
“The new Rohingya will be rehabilitated<br />
to the existing camps in Kutupalong<br />
and Balukhali,” he added.<br />
Some 123,000 Rohingya have<br />
fled to Bangladesh since the latest<br />
eruption of violence in Myanmar’s<br />
Rakhine state in late August. •<br />
Mahmud Hossain Opu<br />
through superstitions. Even local<br />
doctors, who have not heard of<br />
Moyamoya disease, feel confused<br />
under the circumstances, experts<br />
said.<br />
Tackling Moyamoya<br />
Three years ago, the Dhaka hospital<br />
was unable to treat Moyamoya patients<br />
let alone conduct surgeries.<br />
The hospital then sent Dr Sudipto<br />
Kumar Mukherjee to South Korea<br />
for higher studies on the disease<br />
with the sole aim to treat<br />
Moyamoya patients here.<br />
The government, in an admirable<br />
initiative, is also bearing all<br />
costs of the surgeries that are happening<br />
at NINSH every now and<br />
then. People from Bangladesh used<br />
to go to India and spend at least<br />
Tk30 lakhs on such operations and<br />
treatment three years ago.<br />
According to NINDS of the US,<br />
there are several types of surgeries<br />
that can restore blood flow to the<br />
brain by opening narrowed vessels<br />
or by bypassing blocked arteries.<br />
Without the surgery, most<br />
Moyamoya patients will experience<br />
mental decline and multiple<br />
strokes because of the progressive<br />
narrowing of arteries. Without<br />
treatment, this disease can be<br />
fatal as the result of intracerebral<br />
haemorrhage (bleeding within the<br />
brain). •<br />
Rohingya<br />
crisis: Yunus<br />
wants UNSC<br />
intervention<br />
• Tribune Desk<br />
CURRENT AFFAIRS <br />
Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad<br />
Yunus has urged the United Nations<br />
Security Council (UNSC) to<br />
intervene to end the crisis in Myanmar’s<br />
Rakhine State.<br />
The Grameen Bank founder and<br />
social entrepreneur sent an open<br />
letter to the UNSC president and its<br />
members, warning that the situation<br />
for the Rohingya was “deteriorating<br />
very fast”.<br />
According to a press release issued<br />
by the Yunus Centre in Dhaka<br />
and reported by UNB on Tuesday,<br />
Dr Yunus called for the immediate<br />
intervention of the security council<br />
to solve the crisis.<br />
“The human tragedy and crimes<br />
against humanity have taken a<br />
dangerous turn in the Arakan region<br />
of Myanmar. I call on UNSC to<br />
intervene immediately by using all<br />
available means,” Dr Yunus wrote.<br />
“I request you to take immediate<br />
action for cessation of indiscriminate<br />
military attacks on innocent civilians<br />
that is forcing them to leave<br />
their homes and flee the country to<br />
turn into stateless people.”<br />
Dr Yunus said complete villages<br />
had been burned, women raped,<br />
many civilians arbitrarily arrested<br />
and children killed in the military<br />
crackdown which has followed Rohingya<br />
attacks on police and army<br />
bases in Rakhine on August 25.<br />
“Unless constructive efforts to<br />
build a lasting peace is taken, the<br />
situation will get worse, which<br />
in turn may pose serious security<br />
threat to the neighbouring countries,”<br />
Dr Yunus wrote.<br />
He called for a “bold change in<br />
approach” from the UN and the<br />
international community towards<br />
the Myanmar government of fellow<br />
Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi.<br />
“The government of Myanmar<br />
needs to be told that international<br />
support and finance was conditional<br />
on a major change in policy<br />
towards the Rohingya,” Dr Yunus<br />
wrote in his letter.<br />
“The world is waiting to see<br />
that the UNSC has played its role<br />
in bringing an end to a humanitarian<br />
crisis and building peace in the<br />
region.” •