In the battle against cancer, stem-cell transplant has become a useful weapon and in order to give patients a bigger fighting chance, the Sunflower Fund has partnered with the world’s largest network of stem cell donors centres.
The Sunflower Fund is a non-profit organisation that fights blood diseases like leukaemia through the recruitment of stem cell donors.
The DKMS (Deutsche Knochen Mark Spenderdatei or German Bone Marrow Donor File) is an international non-profit organisation that was founded in Germany in 1991 and has since branched out to other countries including America, Poland, the UK, Chile and India.
With South Africa now joining that list, Sunflower Fund chief executive Alana James hopes the country can benefit from the organisation’s expertise which has helped more than 84 000 people around the world.
The international organisation also has more than 9.9 million registered blood stem-cell donors, and Ms James says South Africa will not only add to this list but will now be able to benefit from it as well.
According to Ms James, patients are currently able to find donors from any country in the world, and since the registries are linked by one system, the Sunflower Fund does search on a global basis. However the DKMS has played a vital role in the local organisation over the past few years.
“With approximately 49% of unrelated transplants for South African patients over the past five years being from a DKMS donor, we can only achieve greater success with a closer understanding of our patients’ profile and doing targeted recruitment on this basis in the other countries in which they operate. Patients have the best chance of finding a match with someone from the same ethnicity as them. Working together we can reach audiences of potential donors to ultimately help more patients find their life-saving match.”
The two organisations joined forces after meeting at one of many meetings facilitated by the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA). Ms James said: “Our two organisations were not only founded on the common foundation of families losing a loved one and committing themselves to growing donor numbers in their countries, but we also share the same vision with regard to our service to patients and our use of innovation and best practice solutions to ensure more patients make it to transplant.
“With DKMS being strong in Europe as well as the US and Asia, and The Sunflower Fund being strong in Africa, a collaborative partnership between our organisations makes sense to improve the numbers of people of African ancestry (globally) that become registered stem cell donors.”
The DKMS began in 1991 after one of the founding members, Professor Gerhard Ehininger, raised awareness and the need for people to be registered as stem-cell donors after his wife, Mechtild, was unable to find a match from her family for her own transplant.
Together with Peter Harf, chief executive of beauty company Coty, Professor Ehininger grew DMKS to a global organisation and they also provide grants to scientists studying cancer treatment.
In 2014, the organisation also started promoting May 28 as World Blood Cancer Day.
Doctor Elke Neujahr, global chief executive of DMKS, said every life saved was a success in the battle against cancer. “Facing the realities of genetic diversification and the subsequent role it will play in cancer treatments, global activities ensure the greatest chance of success for patients whose lives depend on finding a matching donor. Together we want to make a big impact in the lives of patients with blood disorders in South Africa and across the globe.”
The partnership will also give the Sunflower Fund access to more funds for donor recruitment. Ms James said: “The use of the DKMS lab for HLA –typing tests has also resulted in a reduction in the cost of recruiting a donor. The test used to cost The Sunflower Fund R3100 per donor that we recruit. This cost has come down to R1500, which now means we can recruit twice as many donors from the funds we raise. Lastly, over and above the work we do with recruiting donors for unrelated transplants, we have also received funding from DKMS to test siblings for patients in need of a transplant.”