IT is definitely a case of 'out with the old and in with the new' as The Sunflower Fund launches Sunflower Day on 16 September, with a Tube of Hope.
The Fund has replaced the bandana with the Tube of Hope – Tope – which will be available at all Pick n Pay stores in August.
The diagnosis of a dread disease like leukaemia is devastating, not only to the individual, but also for their family, friends and colleagues – especially when the only treatment option is a stem cell transplant.
News like this leaves no-one untouched, but the role of The Sunflower Fund is to reach out to this community, supporting both patients and their loved ones in their search for a stem cell match through the Fund’s expertise in increasing donor numbers for the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR).
“One of our very important jobs is to ensure that we have an ethnically diverse source of well-informed potential stem cell donors, who are committed to helping others and willing to undergo a relatively painless procedure – not unlike an extended blood donation – to help save lives,” said Alana James, CEO of The Sunflower Fund.
A patient is only able to search for a match within their own ethnic group, as a stem cell donor needs to be a genetic or DNA match, and not a blood group match. With the odds of patients finding a a suitable person being 1:100 000, it is imperative that The Sunflower Fund grows the registry in order to offer hope for these patients.
It takes just two test tubes of blood to become registered as a stem cell donor but it costs The Sunflower Fund R2,000 to tissue type that sample at the required molecular (DNA) level. The blood samples are analysed and the individuals’ data is then stored on the SABMR until the age of 60.
