Hopes for living have become brighter for a three-year-old burn victim, Isabella “Pippie” Kruger, who was accidentally burnt more than three-quarters and was given only 10% chances of survival by doctors initially.

Pippie Kruger is a resident of Limpopo. She made the front-page headlines last month when doctors claimed chances of improvement with a revolutionary skin transplant operation in which her skin was re-grown from her own cells in a laboratory of the United States.

Pippie became the burn victim when a bottle of gel firelighter exploded while her father was lighting a braai on New Year’s Eve. The procedure was performed in Africa and expectations are higher that the three year old will get a new life soon.

It would not be wrong at all to give the entire credit of this success to Mr. Alan Barrett, the medical director of Genzyme-Sanofi, the pharmaceutical company owning rights of the Epicel technology, with the help of which professionals are able to re-produce the skin for people from the extracted stem cells of their healthy skin.

Mr. Barrett’s contribution in coordinating the entire process made the procedure a big success as he not only cultured the skin to get it to Johannesburg on a 21-hour flight and also performed all the workings with plastic surgeon Ridwan Mia to ensure its successful transplant to Pippie.