Sanfilippo syndrome boy Jack Baird trials new drug

A four-year-old boy from Sunderland is the first child to trial a new treatment for a rare inherited disease at Manchester Children's Hospital.

Jack Baird has a rare genetic disorder called Sanfilippo Syndrome, a condition that is usually fatal in late childhood or early adulthood.

The disease, which affects about one in 85,000 people in the UK, blocks the breakdown of complex sugars in the body and destroys brain cells, leaving people unable to walk, talk or swallow.

The trial will try to determine whether a substance called genistein could slow down the build up of chemicals in the brain which causes the condition.