TORONTO -- Donations to help a Canadian boy with an ultra-rare degenerative disease have passed the $1-million mark.

Two-year-old Michael Pirovolakis could be paralyzed by age 10 due to hereditary spastic paraplegia-50 (SPG50), a genetic defect in which the body fails to produce a certain protein essential for development.

The Toronto toddler, diagnosed with the condition in April, is one of just 60 people in the world with SPG50.

Those with SPG50 gradually lose muscle tone, leading to possible paralysis. There is no cure or treatment, only physiotherapy to try and slow the disease’s progression.

Michael’s dad Terry Pirovolakis said there was disbelief when donations passed the $1-million mark on the way to an ambitious $3 million target to find a treatment for Michael and other children.

“We didn’t think anyone would donate, we didn’t think we’d get $400,000,” Terry told CTVNews.ca.

Michael was due on Christmas Day 2017, but arrived on December 17 as an “early Christmas gift” his dad wrote on the GoFundMe page.

He’s a happy kid, according to his father, but isn’t speaking yet and suffers other developmental delays due to SPG50. Spasticity has started in his ankles, so it’s hard for him to walk and his core strength is diminished.

“Scared, alone and full of sadness we knew that we could not stand down and watch this terrible disease rob our boy of a chance to live the life that he deserves,” Terry wrote in a Boxing Day message on GoFundMe.

“The amount of support, love and willingness to help reach our $3 million goal has been unbelievable.”

Through consultations with medical experts at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and across the world, Michael’s parents learned that gene therapy has shown some success with neurodegenerative diseases like SPG50.

Michael’s parents found researchers in the U.S. who have agreed to create a treatment to help replace Michael’s missing gene.

His family is in a battle against time as gene therapy can stop a disease’s progression, but it can’t reverse the effects. Spasticity and neurological delays become more pronounced around the age of three.

“He’s a trooper and he tries, he doesn’t know there’s something wrong,” Michael’s mom Georgia Kumaritakis told CTV’s Your Morning in July.

“It’s hard to watch him try so hard to just walk or do things that other kids do naturally.”

The gene therapy would use a virus to transport a corrective version of the gene that Michael is lacking.

That virus, with its harmful elements removed, is injected into a patient’s body and several weeks later, the patient’s body should be able to replicate that gene.

In Michael’s case, the hope is that his body will be able to make the protein he is missing.

“If the therapy doesn’t work Michael will most likely be paralyzed from the waist down by age 10,” Terry told CTV’s Your Morning.

“By 15 he’ll be paralyzed from the shoulders down, his brain will deteriorate and basically by the time he’s 20…there’s not that many kids at 20 so we don’t exactly know.”

Medical scientists estimate that they need a minimum of $3 million to fund a research initiative to develop gene therapy to cure SPG50 and three other similar conditions.

B three universities and hospitals are working on it, including the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, which is building the gene.

Boston Children’s Hospital is using Michael’s skin cells for drug screening and to test the gene therapy.

And the science behind the therapy comes from  the University of Cambridge in England.

“My son is withering away right in front of me,” Terry wrote on the GoFundMe page.

“It pains me to know that instead of watching my son grow, learn and blossom into an independent young man, I will have to watch him regress, become wheelchair bound and slowly lose all functionality of his body and mind.”

He explained that his son has all kinds of therapy seven days a week, most of it not publicly funded, costing the family between $3,000 and $5,000 a month.

Of the $3 million target, one million will be spent on building the cure. The second million is planned for creating enough of the cure for seven to 20 children and the last million is for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“If the total is not raised, there won’t be enough to cover the process,” Terry said.

“With an army of people behind us we will cure Michael.”

Terry thanked all those who have raised money through a long list of fundraising events including golf tours, bake sales and a danceathon.