Save a five-year-old girl from leukemia: A stem cell donation clinic is on campus today

Today, from 10am to 6pm on the Warwick Piazza, there will be a clinic held in order to encourage sign ups for stem cell transplants.

The clinic is being held following the diagnosis of Kaiya Patel, a 5-year-old girl with an aggressive form of leukaemia.

Kaiya requires a stem cell transplant but has been unable to find a suitable match. Kaiya, faces the same issue that many ethnic minority patients faces.

Black, minority and ethnic groups face a twenty per cent chance of finding a match when it comes to a stem cell transplant, compared to a 60 per cent chance for white and European patients.

This is due to the fact that donor's are matched by tissue type and this is often dependent upon ethnicity. Kaiya has two months to find a donor, yet the lack of donors limits these chances.

Kaiya's father, Ruchit Patel, who has spear-headed the campaign to find Kaiya a donor, said: "We're desperate to find a donor because it's the only way to save her. People's response to our publicity has been wonderful; they really want to help."

The drop-in service will be held outside the SU, on the Piazza, tomorrow from 10am-6pm. The process includes providing a cheek swab, and your details then being uploaded onto a database. If you result in matching with a patient, you will then be contacted.

In the case that a match is successful a procedure is then carried out. In ninety per cent of cases, the procedure is usually painless and straightforward, in what is known as peripheral blood stem cell collection.

The clinic welcomes all students to drop by tomorrow, regardless of ethnicity in order to save as many lives as possible.

More information on the process of signing up to be a donor can be found on the Anthony Nolan website

Get breaking Warwick news straight to your WhatsApp by clicking here.

@RohiniJaswal