THE Little Fighters Cancer Trust that made a plea for blankets as part of their 2014 GET WRAPPED Project is well on its way of reaching its target. The Highway Mail Group that includes the Northglen News and the Berea Mail, alone collected more than 100 blankets towards the project. Throughout the Durban region, Caxton Community Newspapers collected a total of 400 blankets.
The project, according to organiser Mandie Erasmus aims to provide new, single bed sized blankets to every child in 11 paediatric oncology hospital wards, as well as bedding to over 30 individual childhood cancer affected families.
“The reach of the GET WRAPPED Project, will stretch from Cape Town, along the Garden Route, to the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Free State. Distribution of the blankets will be done in April 2014,” she said. Erasmus added that children with cancer have very low immune systems due to the treatment they receive.
“No second-hand goods will be delivered to the Little Fighters, as this is the only way to prevent the risk of infection, which could be life-threatening.” Childhood Cancer affects hundreds of South African families annually. However, due mainly to a lack of awareness as well as inaccessibility to medical facilities, only a third of the actual amount of childhood cancer cases are reported with the South African Paediatric Tumour Registry of South Africa each year.
Developed countries have a survival rate of between 80 and 90 per cent for childhood cancers but South Africa currently sits on a survival rate of between 10 and 20 per cent . “This is a very worrying fact, if it is taken into consideration that 70 per cent of all childhood cancers are 100 per cent curable if diagnosed in time. It is glaringly obvious, that this is not the case in South Africa, and is one of the main concerns for the Little Fighters Cancer Trust in their year-long Childhood Cancer Awareness campaigns.”
