KOZHIKODE: After collecting relief materials for flood-affected people of Kuttanad, the city came together to join the efforts to save the lives of three children suffering from blood related chronic diseases. The people donated swabs from inside the cheek to test their blood stem cells match with Asnan Muhammad (4) of Thrissur district, Niya Fathima (8) of Wayanad and Abdulla (3) of Ernakualm district.
Asnan and Abdulla have been suffering from leukaemia and Niya Fathima is suffering from thalassemia and they need blood stem cells for further treatment. Now, Abdulla n is undergoing treatment in Kuwait, Niya is under the treatment of experts in Kozhikode Medical College hospital and Asnan is in a private hospital in Kochi. As part of the treatment, every two weeks, Niya have been undergoing blood transfusion process.
The swab collecting camp was conducted by Datri Blood Stem Cell Donors Registry, district unit of Blood Donors Kerala and bar association of district court. More than 250 people came to the camp and donated swabs. By using the swabs, the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) test will be conducted to identify is the stem cell of the donor suitable for the patines.
Datri councilor Athulya Krishna said there are 2,144 patients across the India waiting for finding suitable matches for their treatment and of these the three children are badly needed the stem cells to save the life. "As of now, in Kerala, more than 75,000 donors were registered and from them only 75 matches were located. The stem cells from these matches were collected and used for treatment in 75 patients. Nearly four lakh people's swabs were checked to identify the matches for patients till the date," she said.
Getting matches are very tough. The chance of getting match varies from one in ten thousand samples to one in two lakh samples she added.
Once the swab samples collected is sent fo HLA testing, the result is stored in Datri registry. When one match happens, then the volunteers of Datri approaches the donor for collecting the stem cells. After checking the medical fitness of the donor, the doctors will give Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor (GCSF) injection for five days.
The injection will release the stem cells from the bone marrow of donor and it will be collected by the health experts. On the fifth day, stem cells will be collected in a 4-5 hours outpatient procedure called Apheresis. Later, the cells will transfuse to the patient.