Two weeks after “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts announced she was being treated for a rare blood and bone marrow disease, the number of people offering to donate bone marrow has jumped, according to officials.
More than 12,000 people joined the donation registry Be The Match in the two weeks after the ABC morning show co-host announced she has MDS, a disease requiring a bone marrow transplant, on June 11, registry officials said on Tuesday. Previously, the monthly average was 9,000, they said.
“A significant number of those requests referenced Robin Roberts,” said Kirsten Lesak-Greenberg, a Be The Match spokeswoman.
Jeffrey Chell, chief executive of Be The Match, said between 400,000 and 500,000 new donors are added to the registry each year.
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Some 6,000 transplants are performed yearly, while more than 12,000 people need them each year, he said.
Chell praised the disclosure by Roberts, a popular television personality, saying: “It’s remarkable that she would take her personal crisis and turn it into a signal of hope.”
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ABC has been organizing company registry drives, Be The Match said, and a drive this week resulted in signing up 230 potential donors, more than four times the typical 5. The National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP), a nonprofit organization, is the global leader in providing bone marrow and umbilical cord blood transplants to patients in need. As Be The Match®, they operate the Be The Match Registry®, the world’s largest listing of potential marrow donors and donated cord blood units and raise funds to help provide transplants to all patients through the Be The Match Foundation®. We also match patients with donors, educate health care professionals and conduct research through our research arm, the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research® (CIBMTR), so more lives can be saved.
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Robin Roberts MDS Diagnosis Cause Bone Marrow Registration To Jump was originally published on elev8.com
