Sunflower Fund raises awareness on blood diseases
On Saturday, 21 September, the fund will be educating the general public about blood diseases and the importance of becoming a blood stem cell donor and will host a blood stem cell donor drive.
EVERY year thousands of individuals around the world are diagnosed with leukaemia and other life-threatening blood diseases.
For many patients, their only hope is a life-saving blood stem cell transplant.
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The vision of The Sunflower Fund is to save the lives of children and adults diagnosed with blood diseases by increasing the number of patients making it to transplant.
“To this end, we aim to grow a healthy, effective, ethnically diverse registry of committed donors.
“The chances of finding this match are 1:100 000 and the best chance of a matched donor is within your own ethnic background.
There is only a 25 per cent chance that a sibling will be a match so the remaining 75 per cent of patients rely on an unrelated matched donor being found. It is therefore important that people of all races register as donors, especially in South Africa, so that all patients have the opportunity of finding a life-saving donor,” said Sunflower Fund’s Stephanie Berry.
The Sunflower Fund will be observing bone marrow stem cell donation and leukaemia awareness month in September by honouring patients who have passed on through leukaemia. Backing this worthy initiative are the families of Aphiwe Khuzwayo, Khosi Malinga, Matthew Thomson, Matthew MacDonald and Tashnika Rambali who succumbed to the illness.
The fund will be educating the general public about blood diseases and the importance of becoming a blood stem cell donor and will host a blood stem cell donor drive.
The event will be held at the Olive Convention Centre (Hall 2) on Saturday, 21 September, a day after National Sunflower Day, from 9.30am to 2.30pm.
For more information about the donor drive, contact Xolani Hlongwane on 031 266 1148 or email xolani@sunflowerfund.org
For more information on The Sunflower Fund call 0800 12 10 82 (toll free) or visit www.sunflowerfund.org
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