Photo: BBC News
As an astounding act of human generosity, a Chinese man donated his stem cells to help a British boy to recover.
People who need stem cell transplants to treat cancer and other immune diseases must find a donor who possesses very similar (almost identical) genes. This means that the matched pair must have the same ethnic origin so that immune cells of the donor and recipient work in tandem.
The story began when a man working as a driver in Shanghai registered in a program of stem cell donation through his workplace, thinking little would come of it. Shortly after, he received word that his stem cells had been matched, to a 7 years old boy in England. This man, named Jiang Yongfeng, agreed to the donation without hesitation.
“I was very surprised. I was so excited to get a match so soon. Fate was knocking on my door,” he says. “When I learned the boy was only born in 2007, I was even more confident I made the right decision.”
The tiny probability of this long-distance match between Jiang Yongfeng and the little boy is considered something akin to a medical miracle.
Mr. Jiang gave a saliva sample in order to sign up for the stem cell registry. Since relatively few in China have signed up for the scheme, the little boy — who is of Chinese heritage — was very lucky. Chinese people make up approximately 20% of the world’s population, but only 4% of people on the global stem cell registry are of Chinese origin, explains the OtherHalf Chinese Stem Cell Initiative.
A match between someone living inside China and another living outside China’s borders is particularly rare, explains Dr Zhang Yi from the Shanghai division of the Chinese Red Cross, the organisation managing the donation.
“There are fewer people of Chinese origin in European and American countries, so most matches are within China,” says Dr Zhang. “We have found only 320 matches using the Shanghai database, out of 13,700 potential donors.”
Some are still required to donate stem cells by extracting bone marrow, a more complex procedure that uses a needle to withdraw cells in the marrow directly from a donor’s pelvic bone. However, Mr Jiang was able to use a different, relatively painless, method that extracts cells using a lengthy blood transfusion.
The driver flew to Beijing a few days before the procedure to receive injections into his blood that would “activate” the stem cells. Then, he was hooked up to a transfusion machine for three hours, while the healthy stem cells were extracted from his blood system. It’s unlikely that Mr Jiang will experience any negative health effects from the procedure.
Usually donors and recipients do not meet, the Red Cross says, because the patient often has recurring illnesses. In the past, if recipients met donors directly, they sometimes pressured them to donate stem cells again if their illness resurfaced. This is why Jiang Yongfeng doesn’t even know the little boy’s name.
“I just want the procedure to be done as soon as possible so they can send my cells back to the UK and help the little kid recover as soon as possible. […] I hope he can be brave and strong and he can live a good life,” the driver said.
Source: BBC News
