ARMENIAN BONE MARROW REGISTER HAS 14,000 DONORS

ARMENPRESS
Jan 8, 2008

YEREVAN, JANUARY 8, ARMENPRESS: The Yolian blood transfusion center
in Yerevan has 1,500 registered donors, not counting hundreds of
volunteers who are students, doctors and members of their families.

The Armenian Bone Marrow Register has now 14,000 donors. Its manager
Rubina Ghazarian said to Armenpress they helped to perform two
bone marrow transplantation operations, one in USA and the second
in Germany.

Armenians have a unique genetic structure of bone marrow. Therefore,
probability of finding matches for transplantation is higher among
Armenians.

Transplantation is the last hope for survival for people with blood
diseases, most of who are children.

The probability of survival by transplantation is 40-50 per cent
among adults and 60-70 per cent among children.

The Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry Charitable Trust was founded in
July 1998 in Armenia as a non-profit, non-sectarian, non-governmental
and independent organization. Its mission is to save precious
Armenian lives by creating a bone marrow donor registry which, with
the volunteer recruitment of Armenian donors worldwide, will increase
the pool of existing international donors and thus give a chance of
survival to patients with Leukemia or other blood related diseases.

The Trust’s honorary chairperson is the First Lady of the Republic
of Armenia, Dr. Bella Kocharian and the chairperson is Dr. Frieda
Jordan, a biochemist whose expertise is the establishment of bone
marrow registries.

The Register has obtained a stem cell harvester which separates blood
cells necessary for transplantation operation.