Little orphan Sabrena Afridi has won her fight with health officials for a new drug as she battles an incurable blood disease.

The five-year-old, who has an disease called thalassaemia, has been forced to endure nights of pain being given a drug Desferal intravenously to deal with side-effects from treatment of her condition.

Thalassaemia is a condition which prevents the body producing enough haemoglobin, leading to life-threatening anaemia and her treatment can lead to a build up of potentially lethal deposits of iron in her body.

The new drug should solve that.

Two years ago Sabrena was refused a drug called Exjade by Oxfordshire PCT that her family hoped would mean she could take just one tablet a day instead instead of having to have her lengthy injections.

But on Thursday, her second application for the treatment was granted.

Her mother, Sobia Afridi, 40, said: “When the doctor told us it was quite strange, but very emotional.

“I rang my husband and he started crying. This is going to change her life and our lives completely.”

It is not yet known when exactly Sabrena, who was rescued from a Pakistani orphanage in 2003 by Mrs Afridi and her husband Amjad, 45, will receive the drug.

Mrs Afridi said her daughter had been praying for the tablets.

Sabrena will still have to receive monthly blood transfusions and blood tests every week to check the treatment is working.

Mrs Afridi, who is a project worker at Oxford Brookes University, said of Sabrena’s current treatment: “When you describe it to someone they are sympathetic but when they see it being administered they are horrified.”

She said the family would have to wait to see how Sabrena reacted to Exjade, but she felt hopeful.

The couple have another child, 19-month-old Shariq, who they also adopted from the same orphanage.

Their application for Exjade, which is currently awaiting clinical approval from Nice, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Evidence, was backed by Sabrena’s clinician Dr Georgina Hall.

Dr Hall said: “It is an alternative treatment which is much more palatable for the child and hopefully it will be as good as the current treatment.

“It is a much, much nicer way to administer, but we have to be careful to make sure it doesn’t damage her kidneys.”

At Christmas Sabrena saved up some of her Christmas gifts to send to the orphange where she lived in Pakistan.

Dr Ljuba Stirzaker, consultant in healthcare priorities for Oxfordshire PCT, said: “Our treatment request panel will always consider requests for funding of treatment for individual patients, taking into account all the information provided by a patient’s doctor about the clinical circumstances of the patient's case, together with information about the effectiveness and appropriateness of the treatment.

“To date two patients have requested Exjade and both have been granted.”

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk