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Salman Khan’s The Being Human Foundation has partnered with Marrow Donor Registry India (MDRI) to create a world – class registry of marrow donors in India for patients who have blood-related illnesses like leukemia, thalessemia, aplastic anemia and congenital immunodeficiency states.
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The MDRI, which was set up in 2008 as an NGO at the Tata Memorial Centre, has the main aim of creating a registry of committed, voluntary and unrelated donors for those patients requiring bone marrow transplantation and without an HLA- matched donor within their families. However, for the registry to be functional, more than one lakh donors need to be registered. People from the age group of 18-50 years are eligible for donor recruitment.
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MDRI and Being Human have reached out to generation next by working with colleges to create awareness of the need for a world-class registry in India. One of the first colleges to participate in this initiative is K. J Somaiya Institute of Engineering and IT, Sion, who as part of their annual college festival, Surge’11, conducted a marrow donation drive on their college premises along with ‘Marrowthon’ – a 6 km. run showing support for the cause.
Stressing on the need for more committed donors, the MDRI spokesperson said, “We are glad K.J Somaiya has come forward. We hope that this will pave the way for more colleges and their students to come forth and register with MDRI and thus make their contribution towards saving many more lives.”
On 23rd February a class to class presentation was conducted for the inhouse college students who come forward to show their whole hearted support towards the cause and a whopping 335 names have already been added to the registry in a single day. For now students are encouraged to step forward to volunteer to give someone a tomorrow –Just 10 ml of your blood could save a life.
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