For the 1st World Bone Marrow Donor Day, 73 donor registers are joining forces on the same day to raise awareness among the general public.
To highlight the international solidarity existing between donor registries around the world, the World Marrow Donor Association (1), an international association bringing together all the national registries involved in bone marrow donation and cord blood donation , launches World Bone Marrow Donor Day on Saturday September 19. This first edition is supported in France by theBiomedicine Agency.
73 registers associated on the same day
This Saturday, 73 donor registers will join forces around the world to raise public awareness of bone marrow donation and encourage them to join the 25 million donors already registered. “Because each new donor, wherever he is in the world, counts and represents an additional chance of transplant”, recalls the Agency of Biomedicine in a Press release.
In France, 240,000 bone marrow donation volunteers, also called “Veilleurs de Vie”, are already registered in the Agency’s register.
A precious help for doctors since the task of finding a donor remains difficult. For practitioners of all nationalities, it consists of searching all of the interconnected registers for donors with the best compatibility with their patients, in order to be able to perform the transplant which will perhaps save their lives.
Transport of the graft
As a result, the interconnection of registers increases the chances of finding a compatible donor by accessing a greater number of donors. “This international collaboration also makes it possible to organize the collection and transport of the graft in the best conditions and time, regardless of the distance between the patient and the donor”, adds the Agency.
Diversify registers
All registries share the need to diversify the profiles of their donors, in the interest of patients. The more donors there are in France and abroad, and their varied origins, the greater the chances of finding a compatible donor to transplant patients.
In 2015, it is still young men under 40 who are particularly sought after to rebalance the French donor register, which is made up of 65% women.
Every year in France, 2,000 patients need a bone marrow transplant. “It is therefore essential to continue national awareness,” concludes the Biomedicine Agency.
(1) WMDA. World Association of Bone Marrow Donors
True international solidarity
97 French donors were collected last year for international patients,
743 international donors donated bone marrow for French patients,
… but 144 French donors were also collected for French patients.
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