The National Blood Centre of the Thai Red Cross Society opened an online channel to find a pair of missing stem cells by asking those who have registered to volunteer for stem cells donation nationwide from 2002 – 31st December 2020 to update their contact information via the online system in order to increase the chances of following up with the patient’s HLA-matched stem cell donor volunteers.
Director of the National Blood Center of the Thai Red Cross Society, and Associate Professor Dr. Dutjai Chaiwanichsiri, revealed the National Blood Center of the Thai Red Cross Society as a center for registering to volunteer for stem cell donation as a way to procure non-relative stem cell donors to patients with blood diseases from across the country since 2002. Currently, there are 276,355 registered stem cell donors, 432 stem cell donors (Thais and foreigners) as well as 2,346 patients waiting for treatment with stem cell transplants, such as thalassemia patients, Leukemia, lymphoma, bone marrow atrophy, etc. Even though there are many more people registering to donate stem cell, there are still many patients who may have the same type of HLA a donor but were unable to contact the donor and lost the chance to go through with the transplant which was one of the treatments that could have drastically helped the patient.
Because of this, The National Blood Centre of the Thai Red Cross Society has started the project Stem Cell Retention to find and contact donors who were registered to donate stem cells since 2002 – 31st December 2020 to come back and update their contact information by sending a link: https://stmretention.nbc.in.th to volunteers who have registered via SMS from 1st – 30th June 2021. This is so they can be contacted and could bring the opportunity of treatment for the patient’s illnesses to them. These diseases could be treated with a stem cell transplant from a non-relative hematopoietic stem cell donor for a second chance at life and to be cured of the disease
Not only this, but all volunteers who update their data through the online system have a chance at winning one of two hundred “Thank You Stem Cells Donor” cups. The winners will be posted on the National Blood Center of the Thai Red Cross Society Facebook Fan page.
For those who are interested in volunteering to donate stem cells in order to give blood disease patients a chance at treatment, you can sign up along with donating blood for further collection of blood samples for HLA biopsy at:
- The National Blood Centre of the Thai Red Cross Society, Tel 0 2256 4300
- The 3th Regional Blood Centre in Chonburi Province, Tel 0 3827 8905
- The 5th Regional Blood Centre in Nakhon Ratchasima, Tel 0 4493 8938
- The 6th Regional Blood Centre in Khon Kaen, Tel 0 4342 4630-1
- The 10th Regional Blood Centre in Chiang Mai, Tel 0 5341 8983-90
