For many this is just unthinkable, but each year thousands of South Africans (mostly children and teenagers) have to face this terrifying reality.

Fortunately, life-threatening blood disorders such as leukaemia, aplasia, immune deficiencies, inborn errors of metabolism, and other new indications such as auto-immune disorders can now be treated. Treatment, however, entails a bone marrow/stem cell transplant from a willing donor and although it is sometimes possible for relatives to offer the closest matches, 75% of patients will not have a suitable sibling and will have to start their search for a matching non-related donor.

Where to start? To facilitate this daunting search, bone marrow registers in different countries hold tissue type information of volunteers who have provided small blood samples for testing and recording. Sadly, the chance of finding a matching donor is just 1 in 100 000!

The odds are even more against South African sufferers due to the fact that our rainbow nation has more unique combinations of tissue types. Ethnic origin is important when matching donors and patients. The “markers” that are tested when searching for a match are genetically inherited and often unique to a particular race. It is therefore very important that South Africa has its own bone marrow registry and the larger that registry, the greater and faster the chance of finding a perfect match. The South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR) is in desperate need of donors from all ethnic groups and mixed ethnic backgrounds.

Regrettably, the SAMBR does not receive any government funding towards the cost of tissue typing the blood samples and exists solely on donations from the public.

This is why The Sunflower Fund (Friends of the South African Bone Marrow Registry) was formed in 1999. The Sunflower Fund is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa, with a vision to give all South Africans diagnosed with leukaemia and other life-threatening blood disorders the chance of life, irrespective of their race and financial circumstances. The Sunflower Fund’s core purpose is to educate, recruit and raise funds to build and sustain an effective SABMR as a viable source of well informed ethnically-diverse potential bone marrow donors so as to meet the national and international requirements and improve the chances of life-saving transplants for serious blood disorder sufferers.

So far, their efforts - with the support of many others - have increased the donor numbers on the SABMR from a mere
1 200 in 1999 to over 63 000 today! Also, since April 2003 to date, The Sunflower Fund spent just over R4 million on tissue typing throughout South Africa. This is a wonderful achievement, yet more needs to be done. Due to the 1:100 000 chance of finding a compatible donor, at least 100 000 donors are needed for a Registry to function effectively and in South Africa, the Registry should ideally have 400 000 donors representative of all ethnic groups.