New Delhi: The thaw in Indo-Pak ties has come as a boon of life for four-year-old Parvez Iqbal, who has become the first Pakistani child to be treated under the Indian initiative to provide free healthcare to children from across the border suffering from congenital heart disease.

Parvez, a resident of Rajanpur district of Punjab province, was operated upon at the Escorts Heart Institute here to plug a hole between the two lower chambers of his heart, with the Indian Government sponsoring the treatment.

The surgery to plug the hole was complicated as the boy was well past the ideal age of six months for carrying out such an operation.

Landing here on March 16 with his parents, Parvez was operated upon successfully on March 22 by a team of paediatric specialists led by Dr K S Iyer to correct the "ventricular septal defect".

"There was a big hole in the heart, which ought to have been corrected early in life. The longer the wait, the more traumatic the surgery becomes as due to the hole, blood is pumped to the heart with above normal pressure," Dr Iyer told reporters today (April 2, 2004).

"We were able to carry out a quick, successful surgery," he said.

Parvez's father Amir Baksh, who sat nestling the boy in his arms, said the anomaly was diagnosed when his son was three years old and doctors at Lahore Institute of Cardiology told him that the operation could be carried out there, but that it would be a high-risk affair.