London, England, Jul 17, 2019 / 11:52 am
Parents of a comatose five-year-old are attempting to move their child to Italy from a London hospital after doctors in the United Kingdom declared any further medical treatment to be futile and ordered the removal of "life-sustaining treatment."
Tafida Raqeeb has been in a coma since February 9, after she suffered from a brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM), which resulted in a burst blood vessel in her brain. Her parents said she was "completely healthy" prior to the injury.
On July 16, her parents asked the High Court in London to allow her to leave the country.
AVM is a rare condition that can occur anywhere in the body, and consists of tangled blood vessels and arteries. Its cause is unknown, and the malformed blood vessels are thought to have been present since birth.