Rio de Janeiro, July 20. Joaquín is 15 years old. He is short and the first person in Argentina to win a final court ruling to receive the innovative medication that has allowed him to gain five centimeters in height and improve his quality of life.
His mother, Andrea Fraschina, explained that in the next two years he could grow another meter, and at almost a meter and a half, he would leave the height range that characterizes those living with achondroplasia , which is less than 1.40 meters.
Both are participating in the Euro-American Congress on Skeletal Dysplasias , which is being held in this city and brings together civil organizations from seven countries, including Mexico, and where the demands are common: to eliminate discrimination and facilitate access to medical care and to drugs that have proven their ability to give them better living conditions, like Joaquín, who in the three years he has been taking vosoritide, has increased his height, as well as the length of his legs and arms, thereby achieving the autonomy to take care of his personal care.
In Argentina, another 73 people are receiving treatment through court rulings, and only two have received the benefit without litigation. In Brazil, some 300 patients have also obtained treatment through court proceedings.