Leukaemia girl in race against time to find stem cell donor

A FIVE-YEAR-OLD girl’s heartfelt plea for a stem cell donor to save her life has seen thousands of people come forward — but a match is still to be found.

Kaiya Patel, of Rickmansworth, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in March. She urgently needs a stem cell transplant to cure her of the aggressive disease, which affects bone marrow, compromising the immune system and blood.

But her family said her chances for a transplant are “not good”, with Asian people having a significantly lower chance of finding a match than white Europeans.

Kaiya’s parents Annu and Ruchit Patel, b o t h 3 7, launched a national and international appeals for members of the South Asian community to have their blood tested to see if they could be a match.

They said the campaign has seen 35,000 more Asian people register with blood charities, boosting their chances of finding a match for Kaiya.

But speaking publicly for the first time, businesswoman Mrs Patel said more people still needed to come forward.

She said: “We’ve been told that for her to have a chance she needs the transplant in the next two months.

“Her type of leukaemia is very aggressive and so we don’t have much time. We need people from the Asian community to come forward — there is such a small pool of people on the database. All we can do hope.”

According to the Anthony Nolan charity, because of her Asian ethnicity Kaiya has just a 20.5 per cent chance of finding a matching donor, compared with 69 per cent for people with white or European heritage.

Mrs Patel said: “It is such a scary world that we have been thrown into. Luckily Kaiya does not really understand the severity of this, but at night she asks a lot of questions about her ‘bad cells’ and what will happen if they don’t go away.

“Fortunately she is very innocent and thinks she will be okay. Sometimes she has caught me crying in the middle of the night and comforts me — she is such a caring little girl.”

Kaiya’s uncle, Subir Desai, a partner in a law firm, said: “Great Ormond Street are treating her and the major stem cell donor operations are working hard. But if a match is not found our dear Kaiya will be lost to us.”

He added: “There are very real and serious issues surrounding why an ethnic minority child has less prospects of survival in comparison to Caucasian children. It is tragic and needs to be addressed.”

Kaiya’s case has been highlighted in the Commons, with Prime Minister Theresa May supporting efforts to encourage more ethnic minority blood donors. She said £20 million has been given to the Anthony Nolan campaign and the NHS blood and transplant service to help increase donors.

⬤ See facebook.com/curekaiya

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