3-year-old boy with congenital immunodeficiency needs help

In the small house in Cat Hau village (Hong Hung commune, Gia Loc, Hai Duong), the atmosphere is always sad because of worries about the illness of NVA (born in 2020). Seeing the 3-year-old child weighing only 10 kg, unable to run and play happily like his peers makes everyone feel sorry.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Tung Linh (born in 1998), VA's mother, said that she and Mr. Nguyen Duc Quang (born in 1993) got married 8 years ago and had VA as their second child.

The joy of giving birth had not yet subsided when, 7 days after giving birth, the couple had to take VA to the Hai Duong Children's Hospital for emergency treatment due to fever and convulsions. The doctors said that the baby had pustular dermatitis, umbilical infection, and sepsis. After 1 week of treatment, the baby was discharged from the hospital but only a few days later had to go back to the National Children's Hospital for treatment due to respiratory failure.

After a series of tests, the doctors said that the child had necrotizing pneumonia, mediastinal tuberculosis, and pulmonary fungus. The treatment was quite complicated. The doctors changed the antibiotic regimen to 3 but the child did not respond to the drugs. Then, the doctors discovered that VA had congenital immunodeficiency. Since then, VA has spent more time in the hospital than at home. Each month, the child has to stay in the hospital for 15-20 days. Although he has health insurance, because VA's disease is rare, many of the drugs used to treat it are not covered by health insurance. The cost for each treatment is nearly 20 million VND, plus the monthly medicine cost of over 5 million VND, and the cost of various tests each time is about 12 million VND.

Meanwhile, Mr. Quang only works as a factory worker, Ms. Linh does not go to work because she has to take care of VA. Occasionally, on days when her son is not in the hospital, Ms. Linh takes advantage of the opportunity to go to the market to buy fruit to sell to earn extra income. Although they love their children and grandchildren, the economic conditions of both families are not good, so they cannot help much. Two years ago, the child's grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, making the family even more difficult. To have money for their child's treatment, the couple had to borrow from friends and relatives.

"Every time my child went to the hospital, seeing him lying there with all kinds of IV lines around his body, having to take blood several times a day for testing, my heart ached. Despite intensive treatment, his illness had already spread to his internal organs and he could die at any time. Fortunately, recently, the doctors said they had found a way to cure him, but the cost of treatment was about 1.5 billion VND. This amount of money was beyond the family's ability to pay," Ms. Linh said, choking up.

Ms. Pham Thi Van, President of the Red Cross Society of Hong Hung Commune, said that Ms. Linh’s family situation is very difficult. She hopes that benefactors will support VA so that she can be cured, free from illness and grow up healthy.

Please send any help to Nguyen Thi Tung Linh's account number: 0341007204978, Vietcombank or to Pham Thi Van's account number: 1024984464, Vetcombank, President of Hong Hung Commune Red Cross Society, with the transfer content clearly stating "support for VA".