Datri, a nongovernmental organization along with the support of Apollo Hospital, has now unveiled a nation-wide drive to create awareness on peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) transplant and its ability to cure blood cancer and other fatal blood disorders. To mark the beginning, Datri along with Narayana Health and BGS Hospital launched ‘Get, Set Go Orange,’ a blood stem cell donor drive in Bengaluru recently.

The drive intends to educate and increase awareness on PBSC transplant and its ability to cure blood cancer. It released a 28-page booklet busting the myths associated with blood stem cell donation process.

Leukemia is one of the common types of cancer in India and globally. Over a lakh people are diagnosed with this condition and other blood disorders including a plastic anemia and thalassemia annually in India. According to the latest report by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), by 2015 end, the number of cases is estimated to reach 117,649 and the number of cases is projected to touch 132,574 by 2020. The NGO views that much of these cases could benefit from a PBSC transplant, from a matched donor.

Apollo Hospital will support the cause by distributing the booklets launched by Datri and educate about the need for more donors to register. PBSC Transplants are done from a healthy donor whose HLA type matches with that of the patient. However, there is only 25 per cent chance of finding a match within the family. With access to few registered donors in India, the possibility to find a match for an Indian anywhere in the world is low.

Now we are working towards creating a wide and diverse database of potential donors that can be accessed by any patient, living anywhere in the world, in need of a blood stem cell transplant.

“The awareness about peripheral blood stem cell transplant is low in India and the number of registered donors is not significant at all, despite our country being home to 1.2 billion. Said Dr Sunil Bhat, paediatric haemato oncologist, Narayana Health.

According to Raghu Rajagopal Co-founder & CEO, Datri, 70,000 people have already joined our Blood Stem Cell Donors registry and 82 of these have matched with patients in need and saved their lives by donating their blood stem cells. We hope that we will be able to make a difference to many more lives and at the very least find a matched donor for the over 1,000 patients who have reached out to us and are still looking for a match.

The six year old Datri, with pan India operations, has successfully created the largest functional database of 70,000 voluntary donors from diverse ethnic backgrounds and has so far facilitated 82 donations, of which 6 have been for patients being treated overseas. It has already teamed up with 11hospitals in India and serviced 22 transplant centres in India and six transplant centers overseas. Currently, Datri has over 1,021 patients still looking for a match, and gets at least 40 new requests from patients looking for a matched donor.