Kelly Wells, a terminally ill girl living in Connecticut, was adopted by an American couple from an orphanage in China when she was only 65,438+00 days old. I just turned 8 this year. Three years ago, little Kelly was diagnosed with an extremely rare leukemia. Last month, the doctor performed a bone marrow transplant for little Kelly. She lived up to expectations and survived the operation.
But over time, her body developed antibodies to the newly transplanted bone marrow. There is only one way to transplant bone marrow again. Kelly's doctor said that Kelly can only receive one transplant at most. If the operation fails, she will never have a chance to survive.
Wang of Tzu Chi Foundation's Chinatown Liaison Office said that so far, the Global Bone Marrow Registry has not found a perfect match for Kelly. Wang said that it is most likely to find people who match Kelly's bone marrow in the Chinese community, because in the general population, the proportion of people who match Kelly's bone marrow is 1: 1 10,000, while in the same ethnic group as Kelly (China), the proportion is1:400,000. Therefore, this bone marrow test and registration was held in Chinatown, hoping to seize the last ray of hope to save Kelly.
The reporter saw at the scene that four or five Tzu Chi staff took pains to introduce to the volunteers how to fill out the "Registration Form and Consent Form for HLA Typing of Donors". Several staff members of American Medical Response, a well-known American medical company, stood on the scene on behalf of a bone marrow donor resident in New Jersey, collecting filled-in forms for volunteers and conducting blood tests. Staff member Garcia said that the blood samples and materials of these volunteers will enter the National bone marrow donor Program in the United States, which is actually like a bone marrow database, from which people with blood diseases can find matching bone marrow donor patients.
The reporter noticed that in a short time, many Chinese registered to draw blood. A middle-aged man surnamed Tang said that he happened to go to Liancheng CCBA to file a tax return, and when he saw Kelly's publicity materials, he came to register for a blood test. A 2 1 year-old young woman from China also bravely extended her arm with the encouragement of her friends. According to Wang, the Tzu Chi Foundation's Chinatown Liaison Office has carried out two bone marrow donation activities in Chinatown for Kelly's illness, which was strongly supported by Liancheng Office this time.
It is reported that 30,000 people worldwide suffer from leukemia, aplastic anemia and other blood diseases every year. Bone marrow transplantation is the only way for many of them to survive. Tzu Chi Bone Marrow Stem Cell Center, under the overall planning of Tzu Chi Foundation, is the largest database of Chinese bone marrow donor, which is shared with the resources of bone marrow donor Project in the United States and the world. By March 3rd, 2005, there were 270,000 registered voluntary donors, and 844 cases were successfully matched.