A UK-based news agency has raised more than £13,000 in a matter of days to pay for a seriously ill child in India to have a potentially life-saving operation.

Caters launched a new bureau in Delhi last month and currently has three staff based in the Indian capital.

Last week it reported the story of 14-month-old Dhabuhi Parmar who was suffering from a severe case of hydrocephalus which has caused her head to swell to three times its normal size.

The agency reported that the child’s parents cannot afford the cost of an operation to treat her condition, estimated at around £10,000.

After the story broke on Friday 25 September, Caters said there has been a “a huge flood of offers to donate to her cause”.

As a result staff set up a Gofundme crowdfunding page which has already raised some £13,183.

Staff are now liaising with doctors to arrange for Dhabuhi to have a thin tube, called a shunt, inserted into her head to drain fluid away from her brain.

They are hopeful that the operation could save the child’s life and greatly improve the quality of it.

Without the operation the child is reportedly not expected to live more than a year.