Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s wife Asma, who recovered from breast cancer in 2019, has been diagnosed with leukaemia, the president’s office said on Tuesday.
“First Lady Asma al-Assad has been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia,” it said in a statement.
Leukaemias are cancers of the white blood cells, which begin in the bone marrow.
According to scientists, leukaemias are grouped in two ways: the type of white blood cell affected – lymphoid or myeloid; and how quickly the disease develops and gets worse.
It may be recalled that the London-born first lady, once described as a ‘rose in the desert,’ was diagnosed with a malignant breast tumour that was discovered early. That was in 2018 when she was 42.
