A REGULAR blood donor donated stem cells for a leukemia patient in Guangzhou on Sunday, becoming the 100th stem cell donor in Shenzhen since 2001.
The stem cells collected from Sheng Daoshun, 31, a native of Jiangxi Province, were sent to Guangzhou for immediate transplantation, yesterday s Shenzhen Economic Daily reported.
Sheng has donated blood 77 times in Shenzhen and on another 15 occasions across the country over the past eight years. He is one of the leading volunteer blood donors in Shenzhen.
After hearing stem cell transplants could save leukemia and thalassemia patients, he immediately signed an agreement to donate stem cells. I heard it would not harm my health and could save many incurable patients lives, so I signed the agreement hoping I could help someone some day, he said.
Sheng s human leukocyte antigen type was found to match a patient in Guangzhou on Sept. 28 last year and he agreed to the donation.
I hope the patient can recover soon and have a nice year of the rabbit, he said after the four-hour procedure at Shenzhen No. 2 People s Hospital in Futian District.
Sheng was the 155th donor in Guangdong Province and the 1,984th in China.
Another Shenzhen resident, identified as Ye, 23, in the same ward as Sheng, would soon become the city s 101st stem cell donor. Doctors will collect stem cells from him in a few days for a leukemia patient in Jinan in Shandong Province.
Shenzhen has the largest number of stem cell donors in the country, two-thirds of stem cell donors in the province. One in every 19 stem cell donors in China was from Shenzhen, the city blood center said Sunday.
Pan Qingwei, general manager of Shenzhen Qiya Art Co. Ltd., made the first donation in August 2001, becoming the first stem cell donor in the province for the China Marrow Donor Program.
The city blood center has recruited more than 26,000 people willing to donate stem cells over the past 10 years. Stem cells have been donated to leukemia patients in China, South Korea, Singapore and the United States, Lan Xiaoyu, director of the center, said Sunday.
About 1.28 million people in China were registered on the China Marrow Donor Program as of last year. (Wang Yuanyuan)
