Brave girl, 6, has sight restored - 'It's like someone waved a magic wand'

Brave girl, 6, has sight restored - 'It's like someone waved a magic wand'Six-year-old Saffie Sandford faced losing her vision after being diagnosed with the rare eye condition Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis (LCA) - but has been given life-changing therapy on the NHSNewsBenedict Tetzlaff-Deas News Reporter19:30, 22 Apr 2026View 4 ImagesSaffie Sandford has had her sight restored thanks to life-changing NHS eye gene therapy (Image: Family handout/PA Wire)A brave six-year-old girl has had her sight restored thanks to 'incredible' life-changing eye gene therapy on the NHS.‌Little Saffie Sandford, from Stevenage in Hertfordshire, has the rare inherited condition Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis (LCA), which prevents cells in the eye from making a type of protein needed for normal vision.‌Babies and children with the condition have low vision in daylight, and no vision at all in low light. They can lose their sight completely in adulthood.‌Saffie, a "thriving" youngster who loves Spider-Man, was diagnosed with LCA when she was five after her parents noticed she was struggling to see in the dark.READ MORE: Mum 'making most of time' as she's unlikely to see girls finish primary schoolREAD MORE: 'I took my boy to opticians for blurred vision and got devastating news'View 4 ImagesSaffie, from Stevenage, has the rare condition Leber's Congenital Amaurosis(Image: Family handout/PA Wire)Moorfields Eye Hospital in London carried out tests to diagnose Saffie and then she was transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital to have the eye gene therapy, Luxturna.‌This one-off treatment is the first of its kind for one of the genetic causes of LCA , and injects a healthy copy of the gene directly into the eye.Saffie’s mother, Lisa, said: “Saffie’s diagnosis came as a huge shock to us as we’d never heard of the condition or knew me and her dad Tam were carriers."It was such a rollercoaster of a journey, but we were so relieve...