VietNamNet Bridge – Nguyen Thi Ai Tran, from the southern province of Ca Mau, is only three years old but she looks like a 60-year-old woman.

Tran and her mother.

Tran is the only child of Mr. Nguyen Thanh Sac and Ms. Tran Thu Trang from Hemlet 9, Khanh An commune, U Minh district, Ca Mau province.

Tran has just recovered from a bubonocele surgery at the Ca Mau General Hospital.

Trang said her daughter developed normally from her birth to four months old. Since the fifth month old, the baby’s skin began to have wrinkles and hanging down like an old person.

Tran was brought to the Children’s Hospital 1 in HCM City for examination. Doctors said that the baby suffered from early aging syndrome. However, the family was too poor so they could not take her to hospital again since then.

“When she was 2 months old, I got agalactia. I began to feed her by rice gruel. At that time she gained weight quickly. But from the 4th month old, after she caught diarrhea and cough, her skin started to get wrinkles and she looked older,” Trang said.

Mr. Sac said in the past one year, the little girl began being aware of her disease so she always asked her parents to cover her face by a mask whenever she went out.

“She is only three but she understands about her disease. She said she was ugly so she has never looks at herself in mirror and never taken photo. She likes going to kindergarten like other kids in the hamlet but I dare not to send her to school because I’m afraid that she will be teased,” Trang said.

Not only the baby’s face but also her body skin is getting old.

“She suffered from bubonocele for over a year and until now we saved enough money for the surgery. But we cannot afford to pay for her aging disease. We wish to have assistance from benefactors,” Sac said.

Compiled by Le Ha