Toti donor recipient celebrates with SABMR
LAST week, the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR) celebrated its 21st anniversary of saving lives and Chanelle Matthee and her family of Amanzimtoti joined the celebrations in Cape Town.
In 2006, the SABMR helped to save Chanelle’s life. Diagnosed with a severe blood disorder, she was in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant and did not have a matching donor within her family.
The SABMR set to work and began its search of the 65,000 South African donors on its own registry. Unable to find a match and determined to help Chanelle, they turned their search worldwide.
“After weeks of searching, the SABMR found a donor for Chanelle in Germany. A date was set and she underwent a successful transplant.The rest as they say is history. In 2011, Chanelle travelled to Germany to meet her donor,” said SABMR public liaison officer, Romy Saitowitz.
Today, Chanelle is a happy, vibrant 14-year-old. “My parents provided me with the strength to fight on during my illness,” she said.
The Mathees encourage other families going through a similar situation to ‘take one day at a time and not to look too far ahead’.
Chanelle undergoes blood tests every six months to ensure she has a clean bill of health. “There is a big need for donors and I encourage people to join the registry.”
The SABMR helps to find matching donors for all South Africans needing a bone marrow transplant and who do not have a match within their families.
It is the only registry in South Africa. Through its partnership with the World Bone Marrow Association, it is able to access over 20 million potential donors worldwide, increasing its chances of finding a match for patients in need of a transplant.
Every year hundreds of children and adults with blood diseases such as leukaemia, reach a stage where their only chance of surviving is a bone marrow transplant from a healthy donor.
Sadly though, only 30% of patients have a matching donor within their own family. This is where the SABMR comes in. For the other 70% of patients, their only hope is to find a matched ‘unrelated’ donor, identified by the SABMR.
With chances of finding a matching donor at 1 in 100,000 the staff at the SABMR conduct highly specialised local and international searches to find each patient a perfect match.
For over 70% of patients, the SABMR finds suitably matched donors living overseas.
For more details visit www.sabmr.co.za
