Doctors treating Charlie Gard seek fresh hearing after 'new evidence on treatment for condition emerges'

Charlie Gard: Doctors treating the terminally ill baby have applied for a fresh hearing at the High Court
PA

Doctors treating terminally ill baby Charlie Gard have applied to the High Court for a fresh hearing.

Great Ormond Street Hospital's (GOSH) application comes after "claims of new evidence relating to potential treatment for his condition,” a spokesman said.

The hospital spokesman added: "we believe, in common with Charlie's parents, it is right to explore this evidence.”

Charlie inherited the faulty RRM2B gene from his parents Connie Yates and Chris Gard, affecting cells responsible for energy production and respiration and leaving him unable to move or breathe without a ventilator.

The couple, both in their 30s and from Bedfont, west London, want to take him to the US but for treatment, but lost a lengthy legal battle after judges ruled in favour of doctors.

Charlie Gard suffers from a form of mitochondrial disease that causes progressive muscle weakness 
PA

GOSH experts argued the treatment would not improve the 11-month-old's quality of life.

Charlie's parents have been informed of the decision.

The hospital said it was taken after two international hospitals and their researchers contacted them "as late as the last 24 hours" to say they have "fresh evidence about their proposed experimental treatment".

Under a High Court ruling, GOSH is forbidden from allowing Charlie to be transferred for nucleoside therapy anywhere.

It comes as researchers at the Vatican children's hospital implored Charlie's doctors to reconsider allowing an experimental treatment to be used, citing "new information".

Clinicians from the Bambino Gesu paediatric hospital's neurosciences department said tests in mice and patients with a similar, but not the same, genetic condition had shown "dramatic clinical improvements".

A spokesman for the Rome-based institution said the letter, which was posted on the charliesfight.org website hours after the boy's parents met GOSH medics, had been sent by the hospital.

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