8 Month Old Baby Mahi Needs Life Saving Bone Marrow Transplant, Family Searching for a Donor Match

• Baby Mahi spends her days in hospital where she receives several rounds of chemotherapy in preparation for a bone marrow stem cell transplant
• Sadly, she has not yet found a suitable donor but her family are leaving no stone unturned to give her a second chance at life
• They have enlisted the help of the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR) to find as many donors as possible and increase the likelihood of finding a match
• SABMR is hard at work raising funds for baby Mahi and have set up a BackaBuddy page where you can donate towards this little girl's second chance

The Jithoo family from Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, are doing everything in their power to save their baby girl, Mahi, who has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer known as Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.

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Searching for a donor match

The 8-month-old baby needs a bone marrow stem cell transplant, but sadly, she does not have a donor match. Without the transplant, baby Mahi has no chance of long-term survival, and even more frightening, the chances of finding a donor is 1 in 400 000 for people of colour.

For this reason, the family has sought help from the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR) in an effort to recruit more donors of colour, raise funds to buy additional testing kits and cover the cost of medical tests for the donors.

Raising funds

The SABMR will cover baby Mahi's transplant costs but since it is a non-profit organisation, it has started raising money through a BackaBuddy crowdfunding campaign with a target of R1 million. So far it has raised R16 000 from generous people both locally and internationally.

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According to SABMR, the cost of this type of transplant from an international donor is more than double the cost of a local donor. Unfortunately, only 30% of patients find a match within their family, the remaining 70% have to look for an international donor if they cannot find a local one.

Register to become a bone marrow donor here.

Cassper Nyovest donates R150k towards life-saving surgery for a fan with failing lungs, inspires others

In other news, Briefly News reported on South African music icon, Cassper Nyovest who has come to the rescue of a young lady and die-hard fan, Nompilo Dlamini. Nompilo is undergoing life-saving surgery due to her failing lungs as a result of cystic fibrosis.

Cassper donated R150 000 towards her lung transplant surgery in India and started the #SaveNompilo campaign, which has played a big role in raising funds to make the international trip possible. The charitable rapper posted proof of his substantial donation along with Nompilo's bank details. He captioned it:

"Just Donated R150 000 to #SaveNompilo. Please donate what you can to help. Nothing is too little. Even R10 will help. It's a Swazi acc so you have to go through global payments if you're in SA. The goal is 2 million rand."

Source: Briefly News