Ottawa community helping fundraise for boy with rare disease

Ottawa came together in Stittsville on Saturday, raising more than $15,000 to help fund a cure for a seven-year-old boy diagnosed with a rare disease.

Just before Christmas last year, Anna Laidlaw’s son Jack was diagnosed with hereditary spastic paraplegia type four (SPG4), a disease that affects less than 0.01 per cent of the population.

“It’s a disease where the neurons in his brain are degenerating and he’s slowly becoming paralyzed overtime,” Laidlaw said.