Issued on: 22\/01\/2022 - 02:54<\/p>\n
Karachi (AFP) Friends and former classmates of the Pakistan-born surgeon behind the world's first pig-to-human heart transplant say they earmarked him for greatness from his medical school days. <\/p>\n
Karachi-born Muhammad Mansoor Mohiuddin made headlines last week as the co-founder of the US university programme that successfully transplanted the heart of a genetically modified pig into a gravely ill American man.<\/p>\n
While hailed as a medical breakthrough, the procedure also raised ethical questions -- particularly among some Jews and Muslims, who consider pigs to be unclean and avoid pork products.<\/p>\n
None of that worried Mohiuddin's friends and former colleagues in Pakistan, who remember him as an ace student with a passion for medicine.<\/p>\n
\"He would be so interested, always there, always available and always ready to get involved in surgery,\" said Muneer Amanullah, a specialist who attended Karachi's Dow Medical College with Mohiuddin in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
College vice-chancellor Muhammad Saeed Qureshi said pride in Mohiuddin's achievement had flooded the campus.<\/p>\n
\"There was exhilaration that this has been done by a graduate from this college,\" he told AFP.<\/p>\n
Mohiuddin was quick to share the limelight with a team of 50 from the University of Maryland Medical School.<\/p>\n
\"They were all experts of their respective fields,\" he told AFP by phone.<\/p>\n
\"They are the best surgeons, the best physicians, the best anaesthetists, and so on.\"<\/p>\n
While the prognosis for the recipient of the pig's heart is far from certain, the surgery represents a major milestone for animal-to-human transplants.<\/p>\n
About 110,000 Americans are currently waiting for an organ transplant, and more than 6,000 patients die each year before getting one, according to official figures.<\/p>\n
To meet demand, doctors have long been interested in so-called xenotransplantation, or cross-species organ donation.<\/p>\n
\"We were working on this model for 18 years,\" Mohiuddin said.<\/p>\n
\"Those 18 years were dotted with different phases of frustration -- as well as breakthroughs -- but finally we have done it.\"<\/p>\n
The surgery is not without controversy, however, especially given Mohiuddin's Islamic faith.<\/p>\n
Pigs are considered unclean by Muslims and Jews -- and even some Christians who follow the Bible's Old Testament literally.<\/p>\n
\"In my view, this is not permissible for a Muslim,\" said Javed Ahmed Ghamdi, a prominent Islamic scholar, in a video blog where he discussed the procedure.<\/p>\n
But another Islamic scholar in Pakistan gave the procedure a clean bill of health.<\/p>\n
\"There is no prohibition in sharia,\" Allama Hasan Zafar Naqvi told AFP, calling it a \"medical miracle\".<\/p>\n
\"In religion, no deed is as supreme as saving a human life,\" added Mohiuddin.<\/p>\n
In Karachi, the surgeon's fellow alumni feel their former colleague may now be destined for even greater glory -- medicine's top prize.<\/p>\n
\"I think... the whole team is in for it, in for the Nobel Prize,\" said vice-chancellor Qureshi.<\/p>\n
2022 AFP<\/p>\n
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Pakistan proud of pig-to-human heart transplant pioneer - FRANCE 24<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Issued on: 22\/01\/2022 - 02:54 Karachi (AFP) Friends and former classmates of the Pakistan-born surgeon behind the world's first pig-to-human heart transplant say they earmarked him for greatness from his medical school days. Karachi-born Muhammad Mansoor Mohiuddin made headlines last week as the co-founder of the US university programme that successfully transplanted the heart of a genetically modified pig into a gravely ill American man. Continue reading