‘A South African is diagnosed with a blood disorder every five minutes’
Sunflower Day will be celebrated on 13 November this year in light of Covid-19. Sunflower Day has become a beacon of hope to the many who suffer from blood disorders.
The Global Cancer Observatory (GCO) expressed that a South African is diagnosed with a blood disorder every five minutes. While the number of patients constantly rises, there are only under 77 000 registered donors in the country.
Sunflower Day will be celebrated on 13 November this year in light of Covid-19. Sunflower Day has become a beacon of hope to the many who suffer from blood disorders.
“This is because the funds from the Tope sales, which will be on sale from 1 October this year, assists in ensuring that The Sunflower Fund can continue the life-saving work they do – recruiting donors and assisting patients who require financial support with getting to transplant,” explained CEO of the Sunflower Fund Alana James.
The statistics around blood disorders versus the number of donors in the country has a large disparity.
“To further complicate matters, a patient’s best chance of finding a matching donor is from someone within the same ethnic or cultural group as them,” she continued.
Unfortunately, she says patients of colour are at a disadvantage due to the lack of Black, Coloured and Indian population groups in the global donor database where donor matches comes to genetics.
“One such example is six-year-old Azile Ngubane, who started experiencing joint pain and weight loss, which after a series of tests resulted in a diagnosis of lymphoblastic leukaemia. Azile has no siblings and is currently still desperately in search of a match to save her life.”.
“There is a common misconception that a genetic match can only exist within the family; however, there is only a 25 per cent chance that a sibling could be a match. The remaining 75 per cent chance is based on finding an unrelated matching donor and there is only a 1:100 000 chance of a patient finding a match, making the need for donors crucial.”
Blood disorders are complex and range from more frequently heard of blood cancers like leukaemia to aplastic anaemia, sickle cell disease, bone marrow failure, red, white and autoimmune blood cell illness, explained James.
“They do not discriminate against certain cultures or ethnicities, genders or societal status, and are not all hereditary – so anyone can be diagnosed at any age.”
“The many misapprehensions around blood disorders and stem cell donations are a major challenge for us as an organisation, making it so much more difficult to secure the much-needed donors.
“There tends to be confusion between blood donation, organ donation and stem cell donation – these are completely different databases. There are also many cultural and religious uncertainties that people think are cause for them not to register.”
Details: Website: www.sunflowerfund.org; Phone: 0800 12 10 82.
