Malala Yousafzai to have surgery repairing skull with titanium plate

Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old activist who survived a Taliban attack, will receive a titanium plate to cover an opening in her skull.

According to ABC News, the Pakistani schoolgirl will undergo a three-hour procedure in the next 10 days that will attach a titanium plate to a large hole in her skull. She will also receive a cochlear implant to replace her destroyed eardrum.

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"Her recovery is remarkable and it's a testament to her strength and desire to get better," Dr. Dave Rosser, medical director at the hospital Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham where Yousafzai is being treated, told BBC News. "There is no doubt that the surgery she underwent in Pakistan was life saving. Had that surgery not been of such a high standard she would have died."

Rosser added her full recovery would take another 15 to 18 months.

Yousafzai was shot by Taliban members in the head and neck in October as she rode home from her Swat Valley school, reported CNN. The extremist group has said it intended to kill her for taking a stand for the rights of women and girls to get an education, and it claims it will target her again.