Over 5,000 turn up at camp to find blood stem cell donor for 7-year-old

KOLLAM

More than 5,000 persons turned up at a camp held in Thiruvanathapuram on Friday to find a blood stem cell donor for Sreenandan, a 7-year-old from Anchal in Kollam.

Diagnosed with a rare type of Lukemia, his body has stopped producing blood and requires transfusions at regular intervals. The boy has been undergoing treatment at Amrita Hospital, Kochi, for the last two months and blood stem cell transplant is only option to save his life.

When finding a donor turned out to be an extremely difficult task, an appeal was made through social networking sites that was shared by celebrities and social media influencers, leading to the camp. “A total of 3,800 saliva samples were collected today. Though a lot of elderly persons walked in, we couldn’t take the samples of those who were not from the 18 to 50 age group,” said Sreenandan’s uncle Joy.

Sreenandan can accept blood stem cell only from a donor whose type closely matches his. If the donor is not from his family, the chances of finding the right match are very low. “Though his sample was crosschecked with more than six lakh samples from the donor registry, no match was found,” he said.

The results of the samples collected at Thiruvananthapuram will be available after four months. “We had earlier collected some samples and the results are awaited the next month. We hope for a match in any of these,” said Mr. Joy.