An 11-year-old girl’s plea during De Warmste Week led to 425 new potential stem cell donors of Moroccan or North African origin registering with Belgian Red Cross Flanders in just one day, according to VRT on Saturday evening.
Hafsa Bidri, who made the appeal, suffers from beta-thalassemia, a life-threatening blood disorder requiring regular transfusions. A suitable stem cell donor could cure her, but she has yet to find one. Matches are most likely to be found within the same ethnic background, yet only 33 people of North African origin registered as donors with the Belgian Red Cross last year.
Following Hafsa’s call, 425 new registrations were made in one day, with the total number of new donors now exceeding 600 and continuing to rise.
Finding a stem cell match is often particularly difficult for people of Turkish, North African, or Sub-Saharan African descent. According to Vincent Verbeecke, spokesperson for the Belgian Red Cross, patients of Caucasian descent have a 96% chance of finding a match in the global database, compared to 66% for other groups.
The organisation is working to improve these odds but faces cultural barriers and a lack of awareness about the role of ethnicity in matching donors. Personal stories like Hafsa’s can play a significant role in encouraging more registrations.
The Belgian database currently includes over 81,700 candidate donors, of whom 65% are women and 35% are men. 11% are older than 55, and donation is not possible beyond the age of 60. When a match is found, 88% of donors in Belgium proceed with the donation, surpassing the global average. The global stem cell donor database, of which Belgium is a part, comprises 42 million registered donors.
