The Goliath and Goliath team met up with The Sunflower Fund at the South African National Blood Services (SANBS) in Northgate to register as stem cell donors on 18 January. The Sunflower Fund is a non-profit charity that aims at building the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR) of stem cell donors for patients suffering from leukaemia and other life-threatening blood-related diseases.
Every year, thousands of patients are diagnosed with leukaemia and other life-threatening blood disorders. Often the patient’s only chance of living is a life-saving stem cell transplant from a family member, or, in very lucky cases, unrelated matches found on the registry. The chances of a patient finding an unrelated match is one in 100 000.
The SABMR is currently sitting at just over 71 000 donors. In order to have an effective registry which gives all patients suffering from blood-related diseases a chance at finding a match, the registry would need 100 000 members of every ethnic group registered on the registry. The role of The Sunflower Fund is to build a healthy, effective ethnically diverse South African Bone Marrow registry of committed donors.
Comedian, Nicholas Goliath said that the process “is less painful than donating blood [and] takes less time as well.”
Fellow comedian Donovan Goliath commented, “Registered as a stem cell donor and just donated blood. Thank you to The Sunflower Fund for inviting us and running such a worthy cause.”
Details: The Sunflower Fund 080 012 1082.
