Stem cell donor match found on unique sign up drive

JUST more than a year into the Matches on the Map inter-continental stem cell recruitment drive, a donor match was found in East London for a patient requiring a bone marrow stem cell transplant.

- STAFF REPORTER

This is the first donor match that has been identified for a patient on the 64-country, 10-year voyage, which started in September 2023 when Robin Lewis, former stem cell transplant survivor and his wife, Jolandie left Mpumalanga on their epic journey.

To date the campaign has garnered more than 1 000 eligible stem cell donor sign-ups to the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR).

Bradley Peters, a 23-year-old apprentice mechanic from East London, signed up with the Matches on the Map team at an awareness drive last year.

Nearly six months to the day he received a call from the SABMR informing him that he was a potential match for a patient in far-flung South America.

Peters, who went on to donate his stem cells, says he never thought that such a small act would result in potentially saving the life of another person 6 500 km across the South Atlantic Ocean.

“When they called me, I wasn’t sure if it was a scam as I had already forgotten that I had signed up to the SABMR. I had no idea that a cheek swab would be the beginning of saving someone’s life! After I received the call, the SABMR set the wheels in motion to conduct the necessary testing to confirm whether I was a suitable match,” Peters said.

The chance of finding a suitable stem cell donor match for any patient is 1 in 100 000 and the odds increase even further based on ethnicity.

The donor pool in South Africa is unfortunately not reflective of the country’s population, meaning that the chance of finding a donor for patients of colour is near impossible.