IndiaPost.com - Drive for marrow donors for 3 South Asians

LOS ANGELES: South Asia's Independence Day celebration will be the midpoint for a month of freedom drives scheduled from August 26 in the Los Angeles/ Southern California Area. Its focus would be to find marrow donor matches for a 28-year-old doctor, a 31-year-old entrepreneur and a 6-year-old girl, all of South Asian descent and all of whom need bone marrow transplants to save their lives.

The donor drive campaign was energized two months ago by family and friends of Vinay Chakravarthy, a 28-year-old physician born in California, who was diagnosed with life-threatening leukemia and urgently requires a bone marrow transplant. Sameer Bhatia, a 31-year-old entrepreneur, was diagnosed with the same type of blood cancer, Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML), in May 2007 and joined forces with Team Vinay to build greater awareness of how South Asians can help. Urmi is a sweet six-year-old girl with Aplastic Anemia.

Vinay is being treated at a hospital in Boston. Sameer is being treated at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. "Our community can no longer afford to deny each other the gift of life," said Vinay's wife, Rashmi, pleading to the 12 identified donors who have been deemed "unavailable" to donate to her husband. "Most people do not realize when they are called to be a marrow or blood cell donor, they may be the only person who can save that patient's life."

Team Vinay has been working to ensure that lack of education, fear of the unknown, and myths about donation are removed. "We must reach out to the community and educate each other so no family suffers like we are suffering now," Rashmi emphasized. Vinay's diagnosis and highly visible nationwide campaign for a donor match has cast a spotlight on the critical shortage of bone marrow donors within the South Asian Community. Statistics from the National Marrow Donor Registry indicate that out of 6.6 million donors, only 100,000 are of South Asian origin.

A disheartening percentage for South Asians needing marrow transplants, since a patient's best chance for finding a match is from someone of their same ethnicity; and South Asians (people from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) have one of the lowest chances of finding a matching donor of any racial group.

There are two procedures to donate marrow/blood cells. The most commonly used procedure is similar to giving a blood donation, wherein only the blood stem cells are taken and the blood is given back to the donor. According to Michiko Kanenobu, recruitment supervisor at Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches (A3M), "Blood stem cell collection is used about 70% of the time in donation procedures. Marrow collection takes place 30% of the time.

To avoid giving false hope to patients who need a marrow transplant, donors should be committed and willing to undergo either donation procedure when called as a potential match." Marrow Donor Drive Registration Facts: Who: Healthy individuals, particularly of South Asian origin, between the ages of 18-60 may volunteer to be marrow donors. Participants should be willing to donate to anyone who needs a transplant if a match is found.

What: The procedure to register takes approximately 10 minutes and is not invasive, just a simple cheek swab of the mouth.

When: Freedom Drives for marrow donors are scheduled through the end of August. A month of University Drives across the country are being planned to start when new school years begin for college students at the end of August. See list for times and details. Visit http://www.helpvinay.org for future planned drives.

Where: Donor registration drives will be held in Lakewood, Los Angeles, Norwalk, Woodland Hills and Santa Monica. See list for drive site details and visit http://www.helpvinay.org for future planned drives. Information about donor heroes, donor sites and the marrow donation process can be found at http://www.helpvinay.org. Questions on the Freedom Drives and a planned month of University Drives to boost marrow donor registration or to volunteer to help with a future drive may be directed to: Kristeen Singh, 213-473-1669, ksingh@ltsc.org.