MANGALURU: It’s been a month since 38-year-old Prashanth, physical trainer of Canara CBSE School, was diagnosed with blood cancer. Now, the school is trying to save him by finding stem cell donors at ‘Swab for Prashanth’ camp, which will be held on the school premises in Kodailbail on March 30.While the family is unable to find a match, the school is hoping to find a suitable donor in the same ethnic group, particularly a young donor.
Prashanth has two children and is the only son of Surendra Babugudda, who too has been working in the same school for decades. Help came in the form of school prinicipal Joy Rai, who took up the initiative of finding a suitable donor for Prashanth.
Prashanth’s family members could not be the donors. “A parent or a child will always be just half-match because the patient has half of his/her mother’s genes and the other half from the father. For a successful stem cell transplant, a full match is required,” said Shalini Gautham, head of donor recruitment at Stem Cell Registry of India, which is associating with the school in the drive.
“Participants will just have to swab their cheek for a tissue typing test after filling a consent form that will add them to the life-savers list till the age of 60. If potential donors come up as a tissue match for any patient, a blood test will be done to confirm it. Once the donor clears the master health check up, the donation will start akin to a blood donation,” she added.
During the camp for potential stem cell donors, Stem Cell Registry of India will add potential donors to their list to have a repository for matches.