A 2-year-old English boy is being kept alive on daily doses of Viagra. However, he faces an uncertain future because of cuts made by the U.K.'s drug rationing agency, the U.K.'s Daily Mail reports.
Oliver Sherwood has the erectile dysfunction medication crushed up and put in his food four times each day to control pulmonary hypertension, a condition that causes chronic high blood pressure, according to the report.
Viagra improves blood flow, which, in addition to boosting erectile function, also opens the veins and capillaries to aid circulation in rare cases such as Oliver's, it is reported.
But Oliver may have to forgo Viagra for a cheaper pulmonary hypertension treatment because of proposed cuts by the U.K.'s National Institute for Clinical Excellence.
The boy's mother, Sarah Sherwood, 34, of Hucclecote, Gloucester, has launched a petition to keep funding for more expensive pulmonary hypertension treatments on the NHS.
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