Pak teen activist Malala will need reconstructive surgery, says UK doctor

Birmingham - Doctors treating Pakistani teen activist Malala Yousufzai in a Birmingham hospital have said the 14-year-old, who was shot by the Pakistani Taliban, would need reconstructive surgery.

Malala, who earned international fame for raising voice against Taliban oppression in Swat, was shot in the neck and head and two other girls sustained injuries when the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) opened fire on their school van in Swat valley last Tuesday. She was flown to Britain on Monday for specialized treatment.

"Malala will need reconstructive surgery and we have international experts in that field. We are very pleased with the progress she's made so far. She is showing every sign of being every bit as strong as we've been led to believe," The Dawn quoted Queen Elizabeth Hospital medical director David Rosser, as saying.

He said doctors at the highly specialised hospital - where British service personnel wounded in Afghanistan are treated - were beginning to plan for the complex procedures but they would not be carried out in the coming days.

Malala has been assessed by clinicians from the neurosurgery, imaging, trauma and therapy departments, though "very specialist teams" who may become involved further down the line are yet to perform detailed assessments on her injuries, Rosser added.

The teenager had a bullet removed from her skull last week.

Meanwhile, experts are optimistic that Malala has a good chance of recovery because unlike adults, the brains of teenagers are still growing and can adapt to trauma better.

Experts, however, have cautioned that it is extremely unlikely that a full recovery of all her brain's functions can be made. Instead, they could only hope that the bullet took a "lucky path" - going through a more "silent," or less active - part of the brain.

"Based on the information we have, it appears that Malala was shot from the front down diagonally, but we don't know what part of the brain the bullet went through, whether it crossed the midline and hit any vessels, or whether the bullet passed through the right or left side of the brain," said Dr Anders Cohen, chief of neurosurgery at The Brooklyn Hospital Centre in New York.