The four year old Bade Cakir has a rare form of leukaemia. The disease was discovered last summer. Bade is the daughter of Muhammet Cakir of Verita Holland. Because the disease can't be treated with chemotherapy, they are searching for suitable stem cells. First of all they looked to see if a family member was a suitable stem cell donor, but this wasn't the case.
Bade before she got ill
Joining Matchis
Those who want to help can join Matchis at www.matchis.nl
Muhammet: "Not just for Bade, but for everyone else who is looking for a suitable donor, more attention for Matchis is a positive development. To name an example: last year 19,000 people in the Netherlands applied for stem cell donation. In the first five weeks of 2016, 17,000 applications have been received, partially due to all of the attention in various media. There were even 20,000 applications in Turkey in a week after an appeal in a Turkish television show. Time is beginning to run out for Bade. So far no suitable donor has been found. It takes a few weeks before it is clear whether a new applicant is a possible match. We hope people will continue to join. It is essential that everyone knows what donating involves. It's something very small but it could be of huge importance for someone who is ill."Do you want to support Muhammet and his family in this difficult time? Send him an email at [email protected]
How does donating work?
New donors can apply through the website by filling in the application form. Then a registration set is sent out. You use this to take a buccal swab. You send this to Matchis. In a laboratory the so called HLA tissue type is determined and the data is entered anonymously into a global database. Once in the database the chance of being called up is small. Only one in a thousand donors per year in the Dutch donor base is called to actually donate stem cells. If there is a match with a patient, they are contacted and after extensive information and verification, the actual donation of the stem cells follows.