Durban - A spunky six-year-old Glenwood girl is fighting for survival in hospital because she can’t find a suitable bone marrow donor.
Fanele Memela is undergoing chemotherapy for leukaemia in Parklands Hospital, but doctors said a bone marrow transplant would be her best chance of success.
Fanele’s mom Gugu Mkhulisi, a medical doctor, said South Africa did not have enough donors of colour on the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR).
“The challenge is that ethnicity plays a big role and we are looking for a black donor but there are less than 10% on the registry.”
Mkhulisi, who is currently doing her specialisation in radiology, said it had been a bittersweet year for the family.
Just as they were celebrating Fanele’s second year of being free from cancer in her left kidney, her blood tests showed that something sinister was again happening in her body.
She said it had been hard on the whole family, but they drew strength from Fanele, a strong, happy, feisty little girl.
“She tells people ‘I'm not sick, my blood is sick’,” said Mkhulisi.
Fanele started Grade 1 this year but had to leave school in March to undergo treatment and because she could easily pick up a life-threatening infection. The family can’t have visitors and Fanele is not allowed to play with her friends because of the risks involved.
Mkhulisi said Fanele’s dad, Sandile, had to give up various business interests to stay full-time with his daughter and accompany her to hospital.
While both Fanele’s parents and her seven-month-old baby brother had been tested, none of them qualified as bone marrow donors because they were only 50% compatible.
Mkhulisi said even in a worldwide search for a match, only one was found. Even though it was 90% compatible, doctors feared that Fanele’s body might reject the stem cells because the person was from a different race group.
Even if a perfect match is found, there is no guarantee Fanele’s body would accept the bone marrow or stem cell transplant, as it is also known.
Mkhulisi says they’ve used the publicity around Fanele’s illness to drum up support for the registry.
“The biggest gift for us would be if the percentage of donors increases,” she said.
The SABMR says 60% of cancer deaths are among black South Africans, yet only 10% are registered as stem cell donors.
It says at present there are 76 000 registered donors and there is a 1 in 100 000 chance of finding a match.
The biggest challenge is to have a registry that is as racially diverse as possible. The ethnicity split currently is Asian/Indian, 9.9%; black, 10%; coloured, 7.8%; white, 67% and other/unknown, 5.2%
Some positive news is that, since the SABMR lowered the age of bone marrow donors to 16 years, there had been a 65% increase in the number of youth who have signed up.
SABMR donor recruitment head Nadia Chalkley said the response had been phenomenal.
“In just over a year since lowering the eligible donor age, more than 3 000 South African youth have joined our registry. Most are between the ages of 16 and 35.”
Adil Dowlath, an 18-year-old student from the Bluff, said he signed up after seeing a SABMR advert.
Dowlath said it was a simple, painless process that just took a few minutes.
“Thousands of patients depend on bone marrow donors who can possibly give them a chance for a cure. You have the power to save a life, so why not?”
Kershia Redddy, 35, from Pietermaritzburg registered on the bone marrow database four years ago after her mother’s brother contracted leukaemia. However, her uncle died before they could even search for a bone marrow match.
Reddy is also part of the ‘50 squad’, a group of volunteers who do donor drives once a month, usually in conjunction with the South African National Blood Service.
She encouraged more young people to become donors, saying the process is painless, free and just takes a few minutes.
“I can’t wait for the experience to give someone a tomorrow,” she said.
The Independent on Saturday