A 14 month old toddler from Cape Town, called Gracey Green, needs your help.
Gracey, who was diagnosed with a rare cancer of the blood last August, is in desperate need of a stem cell transplant, but she has yet to find a stem cell match.
The South African Bone Marrow Registry, which is facilitating a donor match for Gracey, is imploring people of colour to get tested to see if they could be a possible match. Gracey’s Aunt Lizel Solomons they remain hopeful their little girl’s life will be saved.
The family suffered another tragedy, Gracey’s mother, Shanique, died last June in a fire in the family’s home in Atlantis. Minutes before her last breath, she handed Gracey to a bystander through the window and went back to try save her grandmother, but this proved fatal.
Register as a donor on sabmr.co.za
There will also be a special Donor Drive for Gracey on Saturday, 26 February at the Atlantis City Mall from 10h00 to 16h00.
According to the SABMR, people of colour are heavily underrepresented in the registry and it is therefore much more difficult for patients with a diverse ethnic heritage to find a matching donor.
Gracey’s chance of finding a match is about one in 100 000, but the SABMR remains hopeful.
The procedure to donate stem cells is non-invasive and takes less than a few minutes to sign up. Anyone in good health, between the ages of 16 and 45 can register.
