Two Yemeni Siamese babies safe after separation in Jordan
Steph Deschamps / October 4, 2021
This rare and delicate operation is the first of its kind in Jordan, added Dr. Fawzi al-Hammouri, director of the specialized hospital in Amman where it took place. This is a medical success for the whole kingdom.
The surgery took place in July when the Siamese twins were seven months old. But the medical team wanted to wait until they were out of danger before announcing it.
They were transferred to the intensive care unit and were on life support for a while. We wanted to be 100% sure that the operation was successful before announcing it, explained Dr. Hammouri, who preferred not to reveal the babies' names.
The babies are in very good health and will be able to leave the Jordanian kingdom in two or three weeks, the head of the surgical team said. Their chance of survival is excellent and they are now out of danger.
It took eight hours to separate the two Siamese twins under the supervision of Dr. Hammouri, whose team consisted of 25 surgeons and technical advisers, he said.
The Siamese twins were evacuated with their parents in February on a medical plane from Yemen, a poor country on the Arabian Peninsula where health services have been devastated by seven years of war between rebels and the government.
Born in mid-December in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, the two boys were in critical condition.
When they arrived in Jordan, the babies together weighed only 3.7 kilograms, Dr. Hammouri said. We had to wait until their weight reached nine kilograms before we could proceed with the surgery.
In February 2019, Siamese babies in a desperate situation died two weeks after their birth in Sanaa.