Striking a chord to create awareness about bone-marrow donation

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, April 23

The number of Indians who have registered as bone-marrow donors is very low. One needs to register to become a donor of stem cells through bone-marrow donation.

This was stated by Jasleen Garcha from the Match for Marrow Foundation. She was here today for a musical evening ‘Jazba’ organised by the Tejwant Kittu Music Academy that was at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College for creating awareness about the bone-marrow donation.

She said the bone-marrow donation was as easy as the platelet donation, but it can be life saving for many, including those suffering from several blood disorders such as blood cancer, sickle-cell anaemia, and others. However, this could be of use only when the stem cells of the donor and receiver matched, which was rare. She said more and more people must register to increase the database of donors.

Indians need to register for the donation, as out of 30 million people who have registered for the bone-marrow donation worldwide, only 13 million people are from South Asia.

She said that there were only 79 registred agencies in the world and around three, including the Match for Marrow Foundation, were operating in India. She said around 15, 000 people have registered with the organisation and there had been 20 donor-receiver matches.

During the event, several musicians performed, including students who had been trained at the music academy. Several celebrities such as poet Surjit Patar, singers Ravinder Grewal, Inderjeet Nikku, etc, performed on the occasion.