IN OTHER NEWS BY JESSIE TAYLOR
The South African Bone Marrow Registry Saving lives, one donor at a time
E
very year, hundreds of South Africans with cancers and blood diseases, such as leukaemia, reach the stage where their only hope of survival lies in a bone marrow transplant. But 70% of these patients will need to rely on a donor network to find a matching donor. Pairing up these patients with a lifesaving donor and a second chance at life is the work of the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR). LIFE-SAVING WORK The SABMR was established in 1991 in Cape Town. The registry was created to address a concern that although bone marrow transplants were a lifesaving treatment option, they were only available to patients with a matching donor in their family.Its mission is to save lives and provide hope for all
patients needing bone marrow transplants. SABMR does this by creating awareness, expanding the registry, embracing evolving technology, and enhancing stakeholder relationships to benefit the community. This work is essential: Each year, an estimated 4 000 new cases of blood disorders such as leukaemia and lymphoma are reported in South Africa. And finding matching tissue types to conduct the bone marrow transplant is often a challenge. The SABMR has facilitated more than 550 bone marrow transplants. The registry is required to undertake extensive collaboration with international registries and strictly adhere to universal standards of practice. The SABMR is an internationally recognised registry and is a
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World Marrow Donor Association member. The organisation has a team of qualified and highly trained staff who work to maintain a registry of volunteer donors in South Africa and register newly recruited volunteer donors on its database. Today, the SABMR has over 73 000 donors on its database, around 0,2% of South Africa’s population. The SABMR searches both locally and internationally for donors. Through its collaboration with bone marrow registries worldwide, the SABMR has access to over 39million donors worldwide in 76 countries. But it’s no small task to match patients with a suitable, unrelated bone marrow donor: The chances of finding a match are around 1 in 100 000.
