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Cross-Straits marrow donation
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A CROSS-TAIWAN Straits bone marrow transplant was conducted late on Wednesday, with marrow from a Taiwanese man being given to save a woman suffering from leukaemia in Suzhou, in East China's Jiangsu Province.
It is the 86th case of a Taiwanese giving marrow to save the life of a mainland sufferer.
Chen Xia, the 22-year-old Suzhou woman who was diagnosed with leukaemia in September last year, faced the prospect of imminent death without a transplant, doctors said.
The donor, entrusted marrow carriers with a string of amber-coloured beads as a blessing gift to the girl, praying for her early recovery from the illness, State media reported.
"I hope she gets well soon," the unidentified 26-year-old donor said before an operation to remove bone marrow on Wednesday.
In accordance with the international practice, the identity files of the donor can only be made known to the public one year after Chen Xia's operation.
The Tzu Chi Taiwan Marrow Donor Registry (TCTMDR), which was responsible for supplying the marrow, is the third largest of its kind in the world.
The match rate for same-type marrow between receiver and donor is one in 10,000 for family and one in 100,000 among non-relatives, according to medical experts.
But a lot of leukaemia sufferers on the mainland have found their match types among Taiwanese, largely because a major proportion of Taiwanese or their parents came to the island from South China decades ago, said Lee Chengtao, director of TCTMDR.
As a result of the same genes, 50 per cent of Chinese southerners can find their match type in Taiwan, and the ratio for people in North China is 20 per cent, Lee added.
The incident received widespread public support and the attention of news media. Over 500 TV personnel from the inland, Taiwan Province and Hong Kong SAR participated in the live broadcast of the 20-hour operation.(SD-Agencies)
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