NATIONAL NEWS - The Covid-19 crisis is presenting an enormous challenge to The Sunflower Fund who is committed to finding matching donors for life-saving stem cell transplants.
Patients who are living with serious blood disorders, such as blood cancer, depend on blood stem cell donations in order to survive, but as a result of the lockdown, the ability to go out and recruit stem cell donors is severely limited.
Therefore, the fund encourages everyone that can register as a potential blood stem cell donor, to do so.
In accordance with the 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 fundraising events scheduled to take place up until the end of May.
“Any adult between the ages of 18 and 45 years and in general good health can register,” says Alana James, CEO of The Sunflower Fund. “You also need to weigh more than 50kg and have a body mass index (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% chance that a sibling will be a match - the remaining 75% possibility and hope of a life-saving match is from an unrelated donor.
“Patients with blood cancers and other severe blood disorders are particularly vulnerable during times of pandemics. 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,” says James.
Leukaemia survivor Sharleigh Wilken, a wife and mother of two, had her lifesaving transplant in October 2014 and she is still in good health. Her plea to the public is: “Please become a blood stem cell donor. The hope that you bring to the patient and their family is immeasurable.”
Call The Sunflower Fund at 0800 12 10 82 or WhatsApp 074 715 0212. Visit their website at www.sunflowerfund.org for more information.
Dear reader, As your local news provider, we have the duty of keeping you factually informed on Covid-19 developments. As you may have noticed, mis- and disinformation (also known as “fake news”) is circulating online. Group Editors (publications and online platforms) is determined to filter through the masses of information doing the rounds and to separate truth from untruth in order to keep you adequately informed. Local newsrooms follow a strict pre-publication fact-checking protocol. A national task team has been established to assist in bringing you credible news reports on Covid-19.
'We bring you the latest Garden Route, Hessequa, Karoo news'
