Boy, 3, carries ‘parasitic twin’

Doctors in Peru have found a “parasitic twin” in the stomach of a 3-year-old boy and plan to surgically remove the tissue today.

Dr Carlos Astocondor of the medical team at Las Mercedes Hospital in the northern port of Chiclayo said the condition occurs in about one of every 500,000 live births.

He said the partially formed foetus weighs 680g and is 22cm long.

Astocondor said the brain, heart, lungs and intestines never developed after the foetus was absorbed by the other foetus inside the mother’s womb.

He said it also has some hair on the cranium, eyes and some bones.