AN African boy partially blinded by a snake has had plastic surgery thanks to a Worcester nurse and readers of your Worcester News.

But 12-year-old Dowda Sonka, from the Gambia, still needs more surgery, after he was left seriously disfigured when a cobra spat in his face. He is due to have another operation on Monday, but will need further plastic surgery to the left side of his face.

Dowda was spotted by Rosemary Henman, of Hallow, near Worcester, when she was on holiday in the country last year.

She has worked tirelessly over the months to raise enough money to fly Dowda and his mother to Ghana, where she found two plastic surgeons willing to carry out the operation.

With the help of donations from readers of your Worcester News, Dowda has now had the first part of his surgery and is recovering in hospital.

Mrs Henman said: "It has all gone really well. The surgeons have done skin grafts around his eyes and he now has eye lids and can blink."

But Mrs Henman said Dowda was due to have another operation on his eye on Monday and then still needed surgery to his face.

"This means I will need to raise more money to pay for these extra operations that have arisen," she said.

Mrs Henman added: "Dowda has taken everything in his stride, with a face like he had he knows the surgery is going to make his eyes better."

Mrs Henman raised more than £3,000 to pay for flights for Dowda and his mother, the surgery and accommodation in Ghana's capital Accra.

She is now considering schooling options for Dowda when he returns to the Gambia. "I have been in contact with a school for blind and partially sighted children in Gambia's capital," she said.

"The children can stay during the term and they have outreach workers, but this depends of what the doctors say about his vision.

"He may be able to stay at the village school."

She is planning a return visit to the country in the summer, and in the meantime has a friend who is travelling to see Dowda.

"We have got him a rucksack and an England football kit with Rooney on the shirt which I am sure he will love," she said.