Can you help save the life of this 2-year-old girl?
In this season of giving, someone in the Lehigh Valley may hold the gift that could save a little girl’s life in Florida. Two-year-old Zainab Mughal is fighting cancer.
Chemotherapy is part of her treatment, and that will require blood transfusions. But not just any blood will do for Zainab. Her blood is so rare that a worldwide search is on for donors.
Her blood is missing a common antigen, so she needs blood from someone who also is missing the antigen, known as Indian B. The potential donor pool is small, which is why the search is so large.
Statistically, the only people who are likely to be a match are exclusively of Pakistani, Indian or Iranian descent. That means their parents each would have to be 100 percent Pakistani, Indian or Iranian.
Of those populations, fewer than 4 percent of people are missing the antigen, according to OneBlood, the Florida blood bank that is leading the search. The donor also has to be blood type A or O.
Her parents’ blood isn’t compatible. Neither is the blood of other relatives. So far, only three matches have been located — worldwide. Two are in the U.S., one is in the United Kingdom. More are needed. A few donors won’t be enough, as there are limits on how frequently people can donate blood. The goal is to find seven to 10 compatible donors.
It’s a long shot, but maybe someone in the Lehigh Valley will be a match. Now that would be something to celebrate during the holiday season.
Miller-Keystone Blood Center and the American Red Cross put out a call for donors Wednesday.
As of Thursday afternoon, a handful of people from the Lehigh Valley and surrounding areas had donated at Miller-Keystone, hoping to be a match, said Qiana Cressman, Miller-Keystone’s program manager for specialized markets.
The center also is looking through its records for previous donors who could be a match, and is contacting them to ask if they will donate.
“We haven’t had a worldwide search like this in quite a bit of time,” she said.
This is a slow time of year for blood donations. So even if you know you’re not a match for Zainab, consider donating. And if you donate in the hopes of helping her but you are not a match, be assured that you still performed a vital community service by helping to diversify the region’s blood supply.
I wrote about the need to do that earlier this year when Miller-Keystone launched its “Hope for a Match” program that sought to increase donations from different racial and ethnic groups.
Diversifying the blood supply is important because some people need blood with atypical traits that can be found only among people of similar ancestry. It especially would help people with sickle cell disease, which affects blacks, Hispanics and people of Middle Eastern, Asian, Indian and Mediterranean descent at higher rates.
The Hope for a Match program is growing and the region’s donor base has been diversifying, Cressman told me. Donors of all races and ethnicities are essential because you never know when atypical blood will be needed.
“We don’t want people to wait until it’s an emergency,” Cressman said. “If you diversify the blood supply now, we’ll have those types on hand.”
The American Rare Donor Program, which works to find compatible donors for people with rare blood, has more than 120,000 registered donors. None of them matched Zainab’s blood in September when the search for donors was launched, according to CNN.
Zainab, of course, isn’t the only one who needs blood.
“Collecting blood is always a big challenge in the winter months,” said Alana Mauger, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.
People are busy preparing for the holidays. They’re traveling. They are out of their routines.
Complicating things this year is that donations were lower than usual in September and October, Mauger said. Nationally, natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires disrupted collection efforts. Locally, the mid-November snowstorm hampered donations.
Miller-Keystone had four blood drives canceled because of that storm, spokesman Michael McShane said. “When we’re usually trying to stock up for the holidays, we fell behind,” he said.
You can schedule a donation with Miller-Keystone at 800-223-6667 or giveapint.org, and with the Red Cross at 800-733-2767 or redcrossblood.org.
Both are holding several blood drives in the next few weeks. You can find the complete list on their websites, but here are a few:
Dec. 7, Red Cross, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Mack South Fire Station and Training Academy, 1902 Lehigh St., Allentown.
Dec. 7, Red Cross, 2-7 p.m., Charles Chrin Community Center, 4100 Green Pond Road, Palmer Township.
Dec. 7, Miller-Keystone, noon-4 p.m., Nazareth police department, 134 S. Main St., Nazareth.
Dec. 9, Miller-Keystone, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Temple Beth El, 1305 Springhouse Road, South Whitehall Township.
Dec. 11, Miller-Keystone, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Lehigh Valley Health Network, Interstate 78 and Cedar Crest Boulevard, Salisbury Township.
Dec. 12, Miller-Keystone, 3-8 p.m., St. James Lutheran Church, 333 Oxford St., Coopersburg.
Dec. 12, Red Cross, noon-4 p.m., Nazareth YMCA, 33 S. Main St., Nazareth.
paul.muschick@mcall.com 610-820-6582 Paul Muschick’s columns are published Monday through Friday at themorningcall.com and Sunday, Wednesday and Friday in The Morning Call. Follow me on Facebook at PaulMuschickColumns, Twitter @mcwatchdog and themorningcall.com/muschick.