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Charity brings leukaemia children's wishes to life

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-01 14:19

"Each year, there are about 40,000 to 60,000 new patients reported and 50 percent of them are children," Hong said.

Hong said that only a very small portion of the patients in China could finally get a marrow transplant, the most effective way found so far to treat the disease, because of the difficulty in finding the right type of marrow and high operation costs.

"Only 20 to 30 percent of those who applied for marrow transplants could find the right types of marrow," he said, adding that even brothers and sisters only have a success rate of about 25 percent.

Due to the one-child policy in China, some parents of leukaemia children try to give birth to another baby to save their children's lives, but they are only lucky if the new-born baby's marrow type is compatible with the leukaemia brother or sister, Hong said.

Besides, even though some families managed to find the right type of marrow, the high operation costs would be beyond their reach.

In a country whose per capita GDP is just above 3,000 US dollars, a leukaemia treatment with marrow transplant and follow-up medicines in China costs at least 300,000 yuan to 400,000 yuan for each patient.

Currently, most leukaemia children's families bear the treatment costs by themselves, said Hong.

Those children who are covered by insurance can partly depend on claims and some, who are from very poor families, can apply for charity funds from organizations such as the Chinese Red Cross Foundation (CRCF).

However, CRCF secretary-general Wang Rupeng said in early May that the success rate to apply for CRCF leukaemia funding is only around 10 percent due to the limited amount of money the foundation has raised and the high number of applicants.

"We hope the patients can receive more public donations in the future," Hong said.

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