Sunflower Foundation needs donors countrywide
A blood stem cell transplant is essentially a procedure where a person’s defective cells in their bone marrow is replaced by healthy ones from their donor.
The Sunflower Fund is calling on individuals to register as blood stem cell donors.
According to a statement from the organisation, it can affect your total health when something is wrong with your blood.
Common blood disorders include anaemia, bleeding disorders such as haemophilia and blood cancers such as leukaemia, lymphoma, and myeloma.
Patients are diagnosed as young as a few months old and some only when they are in their 30s or 40s and blood disorders have no age, gender or race profile.
Stem cell donors are required for individuals who have been diagnosed with blood diseases, whose only hope of a cure is a life-saving blood stem cell (bone marrow) transplant.
More than 50 000 transplants were conducted globally last year and some donor patient matches were made worldwide, but the best chance of a match is within your ethnic background.
A blood stem cell transplant is essentially a procedure where a person’s defective cells in their bone marrow is replaced by healthy ones from their donor.
For the donor, it involves a fairly painless procedure that can take up to six hours, which is similar to donating platelets and with no major side-effects.
“Many people say they would try their utmost to save a life if ever confronted with a situation where someone is in need of help,” Ms Kim Webster, Head of Communications for the fund, said.
“If you are willing to consider helping anyone in need of a transplant for whom you might be a match, the process to register telephonically will take less than 10 minutes.”
The fund is a donor recruitment centre and registry that is part of a global network of registries dedicated to recruiting voluntary blood stem cell donors.
They create awareness and education about the need for and the process involved in becoming a donor and actively fundraise to cover the cost of the R3 000 per person for the tissue-typing test required for a donor to be registered.
If an individual is a match for a patient, they will be given a series of growth hormone injections which stimulates the production of stem cells in the bone marrow. These stem cells are then pushed out of the bone marrow into the blood stream from which it will be harvested for the patient.
The process involves two needles being inserted – one in each arm of the donor.
Blood is drawn from the one arm and goes through a machine that extracts the stem cells from the blood.
The donor’s blood is pumped back into their body via the other arm.
The process takes between four to six hours and involves no operation, incision or anesthetic.
Individuals remain on the registry until the age of 60 or until they are identified as a match for a patient and have donated stem cells.
A stem cell donor only donates stem cells once.
If you are between the ages of 18 to 45 years with a weight of more than 50kgs and a BMI of less than 40 and are interested in finding out more information or registering as a donor you can visit www.sunflowerfund.org.za or call 0800 12 10 82.
The Donor Recruitment team will take you through the registration process telephonically.
The fund accepts voluntary donations towards the tissue-typing test costs.
For easy online donation, donate via EFT or SMS the word ‘Sunflower’ to 40555 to make a R30 donation.
All platforms are listed on their website https://sunflowerfund.org.za/give.
