The Hong Kong Bone Marrow Donor Registry has been inundated with foreign donors hoping to help a French leukaemia patient.
In the past week, about 200 non-Asians, mostly French people, turned up at donation centres to register as bone marrow donors to help find a match for a sick countryman.
About 85,000 people are registered as bone marrow donors in Hong Kong and numbers are rising by 300 to 400 per month. But 97 per cent of them are Chinese, says Lee Cheuk-kwong, head of the Bone Marrow Donor Registry. This lack of diversity significantly diminishes the chances of non-Chinese patients with leukaemia finding a donor.
The unexpected surge in would-be donors was spurred by a solidarity chain started by friends and relatives of 42-year-old Frenchman Yvan C, who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia less than two months ago. The father of two, who has lived in Hong Kong since 1994, is receiving a third round of chemotherapy at the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital in Happy Valley.
At the end of last month, several of Yvan's friends contacted the French consulate, the French International School, the French Chamber of Commerce and other institutions related to their community. Their goal: multiply the number of non-Chinese people registering as bone marrow donors by the end of this month.
'We want to mobilise as many people as possible before school ends and everybody goes home for the summer holidays,' said Beatrice Remy, one of Yvan's close friends.
