Schoolgirl shot in head by Taleban making steady progress, say medics

Published on 23/10/2012 02:01

A SCHOOLGIRL who was shot in the head by a Taleban gunman is making steady progress after a week in hospital, medical staff have said.

Malala Yousafzai, 15, was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham after being injured in Pakistan, and has since received thousands of goodwill messages.

A statement from the hospital said: “Malala continues to make steady progress and is in a stable condition at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.

“She has now been in the hospital for one week, under the care of a specialist team from both the Queen Elizabeth and Birmingham Children’s hospitals. More than 4,000 messages of support have been posted on the trust’s website.”

Doctors at the hospital have said the bullet, which struck the teenager just above her left eye, had grazed the edge of her brain.

Dr Dave Rosser, medical ­director of the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, said Malala will need a significant period of rest and recuperation before she undergoes reconstructive surgery.

In a media briefing last week, the doctor said the teenager had been able to stand up and communicate freely with medical staff. She has been unable to talk due to a tracheotomy tube, but has been communicating by writing notes.

Malala was travelling home from school with two classmates in north-west Pakistan when she was shot. The teenager is widely known as a campaigner for girls’ education in Pakistan and in 2009 wrote an anonymous diary for the BBC’s Urdu channel about life under the Taleban.