Search on for stem cell donor

EDMONTON Several people from Edmonton’s Filipino community attended a weekend swab drive at the request of a Calgary family that hopes to find a stem-cell donor for a 16-year-old girl whose life is threatened by rare blood disorders.

Roshlind Mance was diagnosed with conditions that affect the way her body produces blood cells.

The disorders affect about one in one million people and costly treatment has been denied by the Alberta government.

Family members are not eligible to donate stem cells, so they’ve gone public in their search for the right person, with a focus on someone of Filipino descent.

The drive is just one of several planned by the Match for Roshlind Campaign in Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg. The next one will be a two-day swabbing in Winnipeg on Saturday and Sunday.

“Even if nothing comes about for Roshlind here, the hope is that there’s still a match from someone out there,” said Roshlind’s cousin, Emery Mance.

The event was inspired by the effort to find a stem-cell donor for an Edmonton man battling cancer.

During the search for a match for Bille Nguyen, his sister Susan Nguyen learned how difficult it can be to find a donor for people of a minority ethnicity.

Only 28 per cent of the Canadian Blood Services database is ethnically diverse. One per cent of donors are Filipino.

When Emery attended one of the Nguyen family’s drives, the two families connected.

“Hearing about Roshlind and realizing that they’re going through the same thing my family is, it just broke my heart,” said Susan Nguyen, who has learned she’s a donor match for her brother and will undergo a transplant next month.