'She is a tough girl' 

(MENAFN - Khaleej Times) Eight-year-old Emirati, Maha Abdulla is the only known surviving patient in the UAE suffering from chronic myelogenous leukaemia (CML) which is an uncommon type of cancer of the blood cells. Only four per cent of people in the world suffer from this kind of cancer, explains Maha's mother, Mahasin Abdulla.

Shy but very friendly, Maha took the opportunity, at the congress, to thank the Rulers and doctors for their continuous support towards her treatment. "She is a tough girl," says her mother explaining that Maha was diagnosed with the cancer at eight months. "I panicked when the doctors here said they could do nothing to treat her and referred her to Germany," she said.

"After undergoing treatment for over a year, doctors told me my daughter would die and I said only Allah knows the time of death," said Mahasin. It was only after much research and resolve that she decided upon getting her child treated at MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston where Maha is undergoing a form of chemotherapy and her cancer is in remission. "She misses going to school since she is required to travel every three months, but we hope she can catch up soon," says Mahasin. Maha will be required to take medicine lifelong. Only a bone marrow transplant can cure her permanently.