There is currently an appeal to find a suitable bone marrow donor for a well-known and well-loved doctor who is suffering from leukemia. His name is Dr. Abhijit Guha. I don’t know him, but people I know speak very highly of him.
A bone marrow transplant may save his life, but the registry for bone marrow donors has too few people of his ethnic background, which is South Asian. This is a case where being of the same ethnicity makes it more likely that the donor will be a good match, and they have too few South Asians on their lists. Some folks in that community are doing a lot of work to raise awareness of this issue and encourage people to join the donor registry.
There is a shortage of other ethnic minorities on the registry too. No matter what your background, please consider taking this step that may save a life.
Here’s some brief info from the Facebook group “Bone Marrow Donor Request for Abhijit Guha (Khoka dada)”:
The procedure for registering as a potential match is very simple and painless. All you have to do is register online at www.onematch.ca!
They will mail you a testing kit. You take a swab (no pain) and mail it back in the included envelope -that’s it! It’s private and free of cost.
Please take the first step and you may help save a life.
Just visit or call here:
1-888-2 DONATE (1-888-236-6283)
In the USA see here:
http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Donor_Registry/Join_Now/join_now.html
And a link to the blog for the South Asian group: http://appealforsouthasiandonors.blogspot.com/
