An Indian woman who lives in a far-off village in Chatra, situated in the eastern state of Jharkhand, has shrunk to just two feet in only ten years due a rare congenital disease that has left her limbs ‘bendy’. The woman in question, Kunti Kumari, is now the average height of a four month old baby and has weakened limbs that seem to stretch and bend. Kumari, who is 25, now spends her day lying in a cot, chatting with her mother and staring at the ceiling when she has no company. Her mother, Tilakwa Devi, who is 60 and lost her husband over ten years ago, says that it makes her look like a ‘corpse’.

Kumari has been bed-ridden for the past eight years and is extremely weak and depends on her widowed mother for every need. Tilakwa says “she was a normal girl with healthy limbs, but, as she turned into a teenager, her bones started weakening and she struggled to walk”. Dr Satyendra Singh, a civil surgeon in Chatra, who was informed about the girl’s condition, believes she is suffering from a rare bone disease called Osteogeneis Imperfecta. He said “it is not a complete curable disease but with medication she can be given some relief.”

Osteogenesis Imperfecta is described as a genetic disorder that has it’s main symptom of having bones that break too easy for little to no apparent reason. There are four different types of the disease with the most severe being Type II, which can prove lethal shortly after birth due to respiratory problems. If you would like to know more about this rare disease and the steps being made to fight it, please visit the Osteogenesis Imperfecta foundation by clicking here.

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