First Black Child On Earth Diagnosed With Heart Breaking Aging Disease
Ontlametse Phalatse is a 12-year old girl that has been diagnosed with the aging disease known as progeria. Doctors give her only two years to live but the young girl from South Africa has dreams to be a psychologist.
Phalatse says, “So that I can work on the problems of other people and so that they can accept the way that they are because they can see that I accept the way I am.”
She calls herself the first lady.
“I call myself a first lady because I’m the first black child with this disease … Which other black child do you know with this disease?” she said.
The Progeria Research Foundation says that the number of children diagnosed has risen from 48 to 80 around the world.
Click on the pages to see what this devastating disease looks like and the children that have been affected.
