London - Malala Yousufza, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban, has been able to stand with help for the first time, doctors treating her at a British hospital said on Friday.
She is also communicating by writing notes, said Doctor Dave Rosser, the medical director at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England, where the teenager was taken to from Pakistan on Monday.
She was shot on a school bus in the former Taliban stronghold of the Swat valley last week as a punishment for campaigning for the right of girls to an education, in an attack which outraged the world.
"Malala Yousufzai's condition this morning is comfortable and stable," the hospital said in a statement.
"Malala's family remain in Pakistan at this time," it added.
ITV television reported that the hospital was trying to arrange for her to listen to her father on the telephone, though she is currently unable to talk.
"We know there was some damage to the brain, certainly no physical, no deficit in terms of function," it quoted a spokesperson as saying.
A hospital spokesperson said Malala was 15 years old, not 14 as previously stated.
- AFP