#Covid-19: Sunflower Fund needs stem cell donors to save lives of blood cancer patients
Alana James, CEO of The Sunflower Fund, explained they are now limited in being able to go out and recruit donors.
The Covid-19 crisis presents an enormous challenge to The Sunflower Fund, an organisation dedicated to the fight against blood cancer and other blood disorders by helping patients find their matching donor for a life-saving stem cell transplant. Alana James, CEO of The Sunflower Fund, explained they are now limited in being able to go out and recruit donors.
“In accordance with government’s requirements to limit the opportunities for the spread of the Covid-19 virus, The Sunflower Fund has postponed all planned drives and events for the registration of new blood stem cell donors, as well as fund-raising events that were scheduled to take place up until the end of May.
“This includes all drives on behalf of patients, as well as drives at schools, universities, companies and sports clubs.
“But, even during the current crisis, patients still depend on blood stem cell donations every day in order to survive.
“Every 35 seconds someone somewhere in the world is diagnosed with blood cancer.
“For many of them a blood stem cell donation from a matching donor is their only chance of survival.”
The Sunflower Fund encourages everyone that is able to to register as a potential blood stem cell donor today.
Any adult between the ages of 18 and 45 years and in general good health can register and you also need to weigh more than 50kg and have a BMI of less than 40.
A patient has the best chance of finding a match from someone with the same ethnicity.
There is only a 25 per cent chance that a sibling will be a match for a patient.
The remaining 75 per cent possibility and hope of a life-saving match is from an unrelated donor.
“Patients with blood cancers and other blood disorders such as Aplastic Anaemia, Thalassaemia and Sickle Cell disease to name a few, are particularly vulnerable during times of pandemics,” James added.
“Their already compromised immune systems put them at constant risk of infection under normal circumstances, and you might be the life-saving hope they are waiting on.”
It is simple to register. Phone 0800 12 10 82 or WhatsApp 074 7150 212.
