Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: 'Life changing' treatment restored my daughter's vision

Episode Date: May 9, 2026

Six-year-old Saffie would have gone completely blind by adulthood, if not for a groundbreaking gene therapy. Her mother says she is now "thriving" and the results have been "incredible". Saffie was treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital in the UK.Also, the woman in Ethiopia who has given birth to quintuplets. Bedriya Adem had been trying to conceive for 12 years. She says her five babies are a 'blessing'. Plus, the beloved natural history presenter, David Attenborough turns 100. Why childhood musicians make better surgeons; the human choir singing with whales; and find out how four grandmothers become friends with a professional wrestler in Las Vegas. Our weekly collection of inspiring, uplifting and happy news from around the world.Presenter: Holly Gibbs. Music composed by Iona HampsonImage credit: PA

This is the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Holly Gibbs and in this edition. I could never in a million years have imagined results like this. We were able to get trick or treat in last October and she was running down the path in the dark shouting, I can see. And we were just in floods of tears. The six-year-old girl who can see again, thanks to a groundbreaking gene therapy treatment. Also on this podcast, the woman in Ethiopia who has given birth to Quinn Tuplets, The globally renowned environmentalist, David Attenborough, turns 100.

He's an inspiration and he's adored by all the different generations. I don't think there's anybody that doesn't like David. Plus, why childhood musicians make better surgeons? It looks like musical instrument training has helped our students to acquire surgical skills quicker and better. And... There were all these men, they had beard stuck to their bellies. They were like, oh, billies. with caps and baggy trousers,

and there was us old dogs and black sex in the city walking in. Find out how four grandmothers befriended a pro wrestler. We start with a six-year-old girl who has had a life-changing treatment to restore her sight. Safi Sanford was born with a rare inherited condition, and without treatment, she could have become blind by adulthood.

But thanks to a one-off gene therapy, Safi has had almost all of her vision back. The next she could see in the dark after the operation, much to the delight of her parents. What else can you see? Curtains and my tree over there. What about, if Mummy comes closer, can you see Mummy's face? Yes.

Tell me some... Mommy's whole face. What about now? Can you see Mummy's face? No. You can't see Mummy's face at all? No. You've got a spider vision in your new eye. You've got a spider vision.

What else can you say? Can you see my face? My colleague Emma Barnett spoke to Safi's mum Lisa and to Rob Henderson, the consultant who treated Safi. She was two and a half when she was first diagnosed with highly myopia, which is short-sighted to you and I. She's a minus 10, that's when she first got her glasses. And obviously at first we thought, you know,

we were really devastated about that. But we thought, well, okay, you know, we were told when she's 18, they might be able to correct that. And we just kind of thought, you know, we'll just get on with it. but she'd always struggled to see in the dark. And I suppose if you're kind of naive to this sort of thing, which we very much were, we didn't understand why that was. We were sent to more fields in London for some sort of brain scans back in summer,

2024. And that's kind of when it all started to really become a lot more serious. She was diagnosed with night blindness. Again, we'd never heard of that as an actual, you know, term. When you Google it, you find some pretty scary stuff online, which, of course, every parent's, you know, going to go straight to Google. And then our worst fears were confirmed that she had retinitis pigmentosa, which of course then we started to realise not only did she have a confirmed condition,

but actually it was going to get worse, which we'd never really even considered before. Then we were transferred to Great Ormond Street, met Rob Henderson, and given the news that she would go blind by the age of 30. Which is, I mean, as a mother, as the family, and for her, must have been terrified. Yeah, I mean, I can't even put into words how we felt that sort of. panic that, you know, deep knot in the bottom of your tummy that you're going to spend every day waiting for her that day to come. And just how do you explain it? Of course, you know, she doesn't actually know that she's got this condition that could ever get worse, bless her. And just thinking,

how will she ever navigate through life? You know, she's an only child. We're not going to be here forever. It was absolutely terrifying. And you just wished it was you instead of her. It just, we felt so helpless, really, until we met. Rob and learnt that we were one of the very, very lucky few that happened to be eligible for the gene therapy. Before we hear what happened and the impact on Safi, let's try and understand the gene side of things, the gene therapy side of things. Rob Henderson, it's a pioneering moment, isn't it?

It's a pioneering therapy. Yes, it's very exciting. We are lucky to have this is the first and only at the moment ocular gene therapy. From 2019 onwards, we've been able to try. treat patients with this particular gene. And what we've been showing in our most recent research is that actually treating younger children, we get results that are actually better than than we're in the original published research.

And how do you actually do it? How do you do gene therapy? So in this particular instance, we're trying to treat the retina. The retina is the film in the back of the camera, if you like. So what we're going to do is go into the back of the eye. so I go through tiny little incisions through the white part of your eye. And then I inject using a very tiny cannula, a very tiny needle, a solution of fluid containing billions of copies of viral particles

that contain a healthy copy of, in this instance, the RPE-65 gene. That was the gene that Safi has. And so what happens is that the cells and the retina now get a new healthy copy of this gene. and the cells can start to manufacture a healthy protein and that allows the retinal cells to start to turn light into an electrical signal much more efficiently. That's incredible. I mean, I just love hearing the detail on that.

Let's hear what it's like though in real life, Lisa, you know, with Safi. What can she now see and do that she couldn't do before? She can see pretty much everything now. She's just wandering behind me, you might see her. She was pretty much completely blind in the dark before. We had to rely on torches to just do everyday things like, you know, eat a meal, do some colouring, go to a kid's party, it was really, really bad. She couldn't see it at all in the dark.

We couldn't go trick or treat, and life was really, really hard. She missed out on an awful lot. I could never, in a million years, have imagined results like this. We were able to go trickle or treat in last October, and she was running down the path in the dark shouting, I can see. And we were just in floods of tears, the whole family just thinking, you know, this has actually given our little girl her life back. It really, honestly, I can't even explain

you wouldn't even know now that she has this condition and she can do absolutely everything. Her peripheral vision is far improved. Her night blindness is so much better. And how's Safi doing now? Because it must just be so exhilarating still. She does after-school clubs now. She's riding her bike.

We're back on swimming lessons. And she's just absolutely thriving. Rob, just final word from you if I can. Pretty amazing for you, I imagine, as well. It's a huge privilege to be able to do this. Lisa Sam, and Rob Henderson. To Ethiopia next, where a woman has given birth to Quintuplets.

Yes, five babies, after about 12 years of trying. The chance of that happening naturally is about one in 55 million. The 35-year-old mother and her husband say they are overjoyed. Pete Ross has been speaking to our reporter in Nairobi, Richard Kagoi. The mother and the babies are currently under medical care. They are just at the he won't. Fana specialised a hospital. The doctors say that they are in good, you know, strength and health. And everybody's just overjoyed, you know, about the blessing that did visit them as a surprise.

Quintuplets, five babies born at the same time. It's a pretty rare event, isn't it? Absolutely. It's not just a common occurrence. This is quite frequent, especially when you have children maybe who are conceived through in vitro fertilization. But for children who are conceived and naturally this is just a very rare occurrence. And I think that's why this has really been an issue that has generated really a lot of interest, not just in Ethiopia, but also just even around the world with people just following and are reading about this story. And we've heard that the parents have been trying for a child for quite some time. What have they been saying about their good fortune?

Wow. I mean, if you just see what the mother Bedria-Adem has said, They've been trying for 12 years. She says that really she's just overjoyed. It's a dream come true for her. They say that it's indeed been a prayer that has been answered. The mother, she was just really praying just for one child. But what she says is, you know, Allah surprised her and gave her five blessings through the children. They say that really they are of joy.

They felt like the weight has really been worth it. it's some sort of compensation because the husband really was trying to encourage the wife that, you know, it's okay because he'd got a child from a previous marriage and they said, you know, this is just okay, this is one and I think that's just enough. But she said deep down in her heart, she was deeply troubled. She just needed to have a children, you know, a sizable family. And for them now, this is just a moment of celebration. You know, they can't hide their happiness and joy. A big surprise, but they weren't expecting to have more than one child, but not as many as five, is that right? Based on the diagnosis that doctors had done at one point that indicated actually they're expecting four. But then as we're going through the delivery process, then they just discovered they had five. So really quite came as a surprise, especially for her, she says. Pete Ross speaking to Richard Kugoy. Now to a name and a voice you might recognise.

Our planet is a blue planet. Over 70% of it is covered by the sea. The Pacific Ocean alone covers half the globe. You can fly across it nonstop for 12 hours and still see nothing more than a speck of land. This series will reveal the complete natural history of our ocean planet, from its familiar shores to the mysteries of its deepest seas. David Attenborough speaking there in the first ever episode of Blue Planet. He celebrated his 100th birthday this week. David Attenborough has been the voice of natural history programmes for more than 70 years and his work has been broadcast in over 100 countries. And to mark this milestone, he's released this message. I had rather thought that I would celebrate my 100th birthday quietly. But it seems that many of you have had a lot of you have had a message.

other ideas. I've been completely overwhelmed by birthday greetings, from preschool groups to care home residents and countless individuals and families of all ages. I simply can't reply to each of you all separately, but I would like to thank you all most sincerely for your kind messages. Maca Strachan is a TV presenter inspired by Attenborough. She She's been sharing her thoughts on him. I think one of my favourite moments from any of David's programmes that he's done is in the life of birds when he met the liar bird. And it's a beautiful bird with a unique elaborate and complex song.

And it's a bird that is a brilliant mimic. And in the piece, you hear it copy a kookabara, a camera shutter, a car alarm and a chainsaw. He also, in his attempt to out-sing his... rivals, incorporates other sounds that he hears in the forest. That was a camera shutter. And again, and now a camera with a motor drive. And now the sounds of foresters and their chainsaws working nearby. And for me, that symbolises David's life. He inspired us with the beauty of wildlife. The camera shutter is very symbolic of his work. You know, he spent his life filming. And then the car alarm and the

chainsaw shows the fragility and destruction of the natural world. So this clip went from beauty to a signal of destruction. And I think that's why that clip has stayed with me for so long. I think anyone that's into wildlife, David is right up there as the most iconic wildlife presenter. And he's influenced so many of us and inspired so many of us. But you know, it's not just the fact that he's inspired us to love wildlife and appreciate it. He's inspired me to grow old gracefully. Here's a man that is still so incredible in his, well, 90s reaching 100 now. When David does a program, when he puts his name on any natural history program, it is like putting a real stamp on it. You know that it's going to be good. And for me, particularly in his latter life, it's his voiceovers that

are still so incredible. His voice melts into the pictures. And I've often listened to his voice and tried to learn from it as a wildlife presenter myself and someone that does voiceovers. He's an inspiration and he's adored by all the different generations. I don't think there's anybody that doesn't like David. Everybody loves him. Michaela Strachan. Coming up on The Happy Pod The Peace ends with the humpback whales but also there's lots of moments within the piece

that it's almost like they're singing with the choir. An unusual musical collaboration to help protect our oceans. You're listening to The Happy Pod. We love it when our listeners get in touch and Dr Michael Coe has done just that. He's part of a team of researchers in Hong Kong who have found that playing a musical instrument could help trainee surgeons pick up the necessary skills.

The Happy Pod's Rebecca Wood has been finding out more. The slight screech of a violin or the bash of a piano key, early childhood music practice can be the sometimes grating background sound to many parents' lives. But perseverance may well be worth it later in life, especially if the child ends up in a child. medical career. Researchers at the University of Hong Kong have found that students who played a musical instrument when younger tend to master surgical skills more quickly. The study, published in the

ANZ Journal of Surgery, looked at 200 medical students who had no formal training in surgery. After a two-hour lesson, they were then given a series of surgical task to complete. Dr Michael Coe was involved in the study and his assistant dean at the Faculty of Medicine at the university. We found that students were able to complete surgical task 25 seconds faster, which means 10% quicker than their peers. And the second endpoint was the surgical skills score assessed by our surgical educator. And we found that students with previous musical instrument training achieve 0.5 marks out of 10 higher than their peers,

which means 6% higher score than their peers. So it looks like musical instrument training has helped our students to acquire surgical skills quicker and better. Around 60% of the students involved in the study have played an instrument in the past. And interestingly, the results show it doesn't seem to matter whether it was the keyboard or cello or bassoon or to what level it was played at. Cien Ghe is one of the students who took part. I grew up playing violin as a child. I started at the age of four. and I think like many children, I definitely went through a few years where it was more of a chore to practice

that felt like my parents forced me to practice violin. But I think for me it's definitely a bit of a relief that having so many years of musical instrument training does have some direct translation of skills to my current medical career. So why does putting in the hours playing like C& did now help her out with suturing and incision-making? Here's Dr Coe again. First of all, both require good hand-eye coordination and secondly, both require the fine motor dexterity, the finger dexterity and also the ability to perform under pressure. And while the team are keen to point out that it doesn't make you any less of a surgeon

not having a musical background, it could be a bonus to have it in your medical kit bag, something Dr Coe is putting into action in his own life. I've got a young daughter, four years old now, And yeah, I'm planning to bring her to a musical school. I did just to play the cello throughout school, and it's too late for me to be a surgeon. But I'm wondering, could it maybe benefit me elsewhere in life? Are there maybe other things that I could apply it to? Yeah, because this study is all about the muscle memory, the association between the fine motor dexterity

and the fine skills that you have developed over the time. Perhaps something like handcrafts, for example, something that requires, quite a lot of precision hen-eye coordination. Better get out my cross-stitch. Rebecca Wood reporting. Have you ever boarded a flight and found someone already sitting in your seat? That's what happened to four women in their 70s when they were travelling to Las Vegas from Wales. But what started as an emotional trip to scatter the ashes of one of their late husbands,

turned into one of new friendships and a newfound love of wrestling, as Jane McCubbin reports. I lost my husband eight years ago. This is Rose Sully. I thought it's time to say goodbye. So I got out of the girls and I said, how do you fancy a trip to Vegas? I need the support and the love of you all around me.

We pre-booked the seats. That's Susie Matthews. When we got to the row, there was a young man sat in my seat. And this is Lynne Crawford. An extremely lovely man. Definitely. Honestly, you couldn't wish to meet anybody nicer. Q a 10-hour flight during which the nannas were charmed.

Got to passport control and he was outside waiting for us and he said, I'd love you all to come to the wrestling and Rosenlin said, yeah, we will. The reason I'm back to me on 0-1! O-1! I've never seen so much enthusiasm in all my life. And Dorese is! Oh, okay. I've never been to a wrestling match before.

No, no, no, this is so dangerous! There were all these men. They had beards down to their bellies. They were like elderly with caps and baggy trousers. And there was us all dolled up like sex in the city walking in. Absolutely crazy. But you never expected to see Dorese again. Oh gosh, no.

Derrice had other ideas and posted an appeal across social media to try and find them. You had to find the nannas. Of course, of course. Everyone saw them. Everyone was talking about them. They are special people. And by the time the nannas. Nana's landed back in Cardiff, his social media poster, try and find them had gone viral.

And then my granddaughter said there's 1.1 million views on Twitter. Are you ready to meet them? Yes, we found bananas. And this is the reunion of dreams. You were touched. They put the effort in. I couldn't believe that they turned up, to be honest. Oh, they're lovely. They were there.

With bells on. With bells on, going crazy in the crowd. Hello. Oh, lovely to see you. So, one mad trip, one viral search. It's because you go all the stars. You're the stars. And suddenly their story isn't over.

It's just getting started. We've seen you in Vegas. Now we're going to show you Cardiff. Let's see. Let's go. First stop. B-I-N-G-O. Bingo.

Bingo. Bingo. Just some superstars in the room. The Welsh nannas upstairs. They're currently viral at Derease, too. If your story is about anything, what's it about? Grabbing life and enjoying life, because life is too short. You've got to get out there and do it, you know.

We're only here because of your Pete. You would find it highly amusing. Yeah, he said, can't leave you for five minutes. And you cause it havoc. When I say 0-1, you say 2-1. You're on a plate to last week. It's the next moment you're the superstar. You were to live it.

When I say, when I say that. Just chat to the person next to you sometimes. It doesn't matter how young or old they are, everyone likes to be silent. At times it's a misopportunity to get to know more people outside of your bubble. That's a rap. There is a saying that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But this was a friendship we all needed to hear about. It's been unbelievable and it's down to this guy.

That report was from Jane McCubbin. We end with an unusual musical collaboration between humans and animals, A choir here in the UK has created a song featuring the sounds of humpback whales off the coast of Iceland. Helena Burke has been finding out more. Over the past few years, a research team from Whale Wise has been studying and recording the humpbacks in a remote Icelandic fjord. Rebecca Douglas, the president of the Conservation Charities Board of Trustees, went to see the work firsthand. We're in the very, very remote north-east Iceland. We're in a town backfjia that looks over an incredible field system.

There are a few houses here. But importantly, there are humpback whales in this bay. And we're capturing research and evidence, basically, of the fact that they're here and they exist. Because potentially there might be quite a large industrial port being put in. And it's important to know what's in the area and be able to advocate for the whales. now that we know that they're here year on year. The team installs an underwater microphone to record whale song from the depths.

So it goes down and we then hope for the best that when it's retrieved, A, we can find it and then B, when you actually start to unpack it and get the data out, that there's actually something there and recorded. And so that moment of release and relief when it's there is, I can't describe what that feeling must be like. When she's not helping to protect singing whales, Rebecca joins singing humans at a community choir in the town of Margate in England.

It was there that the choir master, Huey Gavin, had the idea of getting everyone involved in writing a song. There's 140 in the choir and what we did is create this portal and people could put their words that were inspired by the sea into that portal. And then I had this whole database of oceanic, watery words, and I kind of wove together some lyrics based on those choir member suggestions. Huey then mixed the choir's song with the sounds captured from the deep. This is the first whale I've had as a featured artist in a track, definitely.

But it worked perfectly in the track, so the piece ends with the humpback whales, but also there's lots of moments within the piece that it's almost like they're singing with the choir. The song, which is called Wash Over Me, will be released later this year to coincide with World Oceans Day. Rebecca says the experience has made her emotional and hopes it will help remind people of the importance of protecting marine life. We know how important this research is.

And then when you see the whales and you see the team's reaction and you're just immersed in this place, I'm always blown away by that fact that we're a blue planet, 71% of the planet is water. We're made up with a similar amount as humans. And so, you know, the water is something that connects all of us through the cycles of life, no matter where we are. And I think that just sort of trampends and is that thread through World Ocean Day because it's vital for all of us. Rebecca Douglas and the song Wash Over Me, ending that report from Helena Burke.

And that's all from the Happy Pod for. now. We'd love to hear from you. As ever, the address is global podcast at BBC.com. This edition was produced by Rachel Bulkley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Holly Gibbs. Until next time, goodbye.