Rare stem cell donation helps save child's life

A young man with rare Rh-negative blood in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, has donated his hematopoietic stem cells to save the life of a 12-year-old with a blood disease in Zhengzhou, Henan province.

The 31-year-old man of the Uygur ethnic group, who asked to be named Nur, made the donation at the People's Hospital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region on Sept 5. The cells were immediately delivered to Zhengzhou.

"I feel so proud to be able to help save a life. It means a lot to me," Nur told China Daily on Thursday.

He said the whole process took nine hours — almost twice as long as expected — due to some minor problems, but he never felt uncomfortable as the medical and Red Cross staff were considerate and attentive throughout.

"Two hours after the collection was completed, I was back to normal," he said.

Nur said he decided to donate because he and his family had once received help, and donating was a way of paying such kindness forward.

In 2020, while Nur's wife was pregnant, they found out they both had the Rh-negative blood type, often called "panda blood" in China due to its scarcity.

"We were told to find volunteer blood donors with a matching blood type for my wife before delivery, in case a blood transfusion was needed," Nur said, adding that he was at a loss about what to do until a local volunteer team heard about their situation and sent two volunteers who were ready to donate blood for his wife.

To pay them back for their kindness, Nur left his phone number with the blood bank, ready to assist anyone in need of the "panda blood".

In July 2021, one month after he joined the Communist Party of China, he registered as a volunteer hematopoietic stem cell donor.

"I learned that hematopoietic stem cell transplantation can save the lives of patients with blood diseases. However, due to the low success rate of finding a matching donor, some people may never get the help they need," he said.

Nur, who is also a community official in the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone, said that as a Party member and a public servant, serving the people and helping them to the best of his ability is a duty that comes naturally.

"When I joined the Party, I took an oath to be ready to sacrifice everything for the Party and the people's interests at any time," he added.

Nur said he believes that China's proposal of building a community with a shared future for mankind is applicable within the country itself, and provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, as well as China's 56 ethnic groups, should help and support each other.

For these reasons, he said, he didn't hesitate to help when informed in a call from the local Red Cross that his blood marrow was a match for a patient.

"My first reaction was, 'This is my chance to save a life!'" he said.

According to the Urumqi Red Cross Society's humanitarian affairs development center, the case marks the first successful donation of hematopoietic stem cells from a volunteer with Rh-negative blood in the autonomous region, Urumqi Evening News reported.

Nur is also the 43rd donor of hematopoietic stem cells in Urumqi and the 184th in the autonomous region, the center said.

Abulikemu Adili, vice-chairman of the Urumqi Red Cross Society, said the Xinjiang branch of the China Marrow Donor Program, a nonprofit organization that manages a national databank on volunteers, can store as many as 50,000 hematopoietic stem cell samples and has more than 11,000 volunteers from Urumqi in its registry.

Contact the writers at pengchao@chinadaily.com.cn