The Jewish community in and outside South Florida raised more than $2 million for a young couple in Aventura, Fla., to be able to afford the world’s most expensive treatment—a $2.1 million drug called Zolgensma—for their young daughter.
Eliana Cohen, 2, was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, “a genetic disease affecting the part of the nervous system that controls voluntary muscle movement,” according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
The Chesed Fund, a Jewish crowdfunding website, raised $2.2 million in five days for the drug, which can only be given to patients younger than 2 years old.
Since last Friday’s treatment, the toddler has been doing well, Rabbi Yosef Galimidi of the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue in Aventura, who knows the family well, told The Miami Herald.
“It wasn’t one person’s miracle,” he said. “It was a team effort.”
Cohen’s parents have declined to discuss their daughter’s case with the media.