Pune: Christ College to spread awareness about blood cancer, thalassemia

PUNE: Christ College in Pune has signed up a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Datri, a blood stem cell donor registry, to work towards sensitising students about blood cancer and thalassemia.

"We will support the cause by conducting awareness for all students in every department. The college will be doing multiple public drives and events like walkathons and marathons on important days to create awareness," said Sony Chundattu, principal of Christ College.

Priya Wahab, coordinator, Christ College said, “There are large number of patients suffering from blood cancer and thalassemia major among others for which the last resort is blood stem cell transplant. For patients who could not find a match within their family the only hope is registries like Datri. We will support Datri to help spread awareness and save lives of many such patients.”

Currently, a total 4,15,000 donors are registered with Datri as potential blood stem cell donors from Pune. These numbers are very less as compared to other cities in the country. "This definitely calls for more awareness in the state, about the importance of saving lives through blood stem cell donation for blood cancer patients," Wahab said.

"It is sad that even after every donor is being made aware the he or she would be the last hope of cure to a patient if found a match, there are still around 40% back-outs from volunteer donors. While for a patient that donor could be the only person in the world who could save his/her life. There is a dire need to spread awareness which will help save lives of thousands of patients," she said.

Typically, patients would first try to find a match within their family and there are 25% chances to find a match among family members. Else, they have to look out for a perfect match from a registry like Datri. As of today, the probability of finding a matched donor is only 1 in 10,000 to one in over a million, as the total number of volunteer donors registered are very low.