Stem cell therapy can be extremely useful for serious neurological disorders like Autism, Cerebral Palsy and Muscular Dystrophy in children and if the intervention is started below the age of 12, the conditions can even be completely reverted, renowned Indian Neuro Surgeon, Dr Alok Sharma, who has the credit of publishing the first research paper on stem cell therapy in such diseases, said on 4th September in Ahmedabad.

Addressing a press conference, Dr Sharma stressed on the need for early intervention. He said that 70 million or almost one percent of the total world population suffers from Autism. "In India, though separate data for Autism and other such diseases were not available yet, as per official information 2.86 crore people in the country suffer from such diseases of whom almost 1 crore or 10 million were children and a large chunk of it was those suffering from Autism, cerebral palsy and Muscular Dystrophy etc," he said.

"We want to spread awareness among the people and give hope to the hopeless parents of such children that if they come for safe and not so costly stem cell therapy, in which such cells are taken from the bone marrow of the patients and injected in them, in time the success rate was as high as 80 to 90 per cent," Dr Sharma said, adding, "If a child comes to us before the age of 12 years, the condition can even completely revert. But if some one comes after 20 years of age, it becomes difficult for us. Between 12 to 20 years the recovery was medium."

He also lamented the fact that not much separate data was available. Dr Sharma also pointed out that despite the special interest of PM and the then CM of Gujarat Narendra Modi in the stem cell therapy research, the building made for stem cell research in Surat civil hospital campus long back now wore 'deserted look'. He added that Rs 90 crore of fund was provided for it as long back as 15 years but it has not started yet.