AN ASTONISHING 50,000 people had by yesterday night responded to an appeal to find a compatible bone marrow donor for a six-year-old leukaemia patient.
The overwhelming response – from both sides of the island’s divide – has raised hopes of finding a donor in time to save little Andreas Vassiliou.
The screening of donated samples is being carried out at "world record" rates, but Andreas’ condition has taken a turn for the worse.
Arrangements were yesterday being made for Andreas to be moved from Nicosia’s Makarios hospital to a specialised clinic in the US. The chemotherapy treatment Andreas will receive at the clinic will aim to bolster the six-year-old’s system in preparation for a life-saving transplant when and if a donor is identified.
The chance of finding a suitable donor from among the general population is only 1 in 35,000.
Andreas’s father, Vassos, has warned that his son will only survive another month without a bone marrow transplant. But experts at the Karaiskakio Foundation, which has spearheaded the donor appeal, yesterday suggested things were not that bleak.
Adamos Adamou, chairman of the Karaiskakio’s scientific committee, said Andreas could hang on for two, three or even five months.
"How long he could last we cannot know for sure, but I disagree with suggestions that only one month remains," Adamou said.
Hundreds of people again turned up to give blood samples for the appeal at hospitals across the island. For the second day running, large numbers of Turkish Cypriots went to the Ledra Palace to contribute to the appeal.
The Karaiskakio Foundation hopes to have 70,000 blood samples within the week.
"We are hopeful of finding a donor," Adamou said.
With donors coming forward so willingly, the challenge for the Karaiskakio is to screen the samples in time.
Adamou said the foundation, with the help of specialised equipment rushed in from the US and Germany, had screened 1,000 samples yesterday and would be able to maintain this rate.
Adamou said this screening rate had never been bettered "anywhere in the world."
Some 2,000 samples are to be shipped abroad for screening today, Adamou added.
A total of some 4,000 samples had been screened by yesterday night.
Adamou said a suitable donor should, statistically, be found once 35,000 samples have been screened.
"This is the number we want to reach so that the child then has all the normal chances he can have," the expert said.
The samples are also being tested for compatibility with a 12-year-old London Turkish Cypriot boy – Kemal Saracoglu – also suffering from leukaemia.
Turkey has put her donor files at the government’s disposal to help in the search for a donor for Andreas and blood donations have also been made in Greece.
Politicians again lined up to pay tribute to the way the Turkish side had responded to the appeal to help Andreas. Turkish Cypriot newspapers made the Turkish Cypriot response headline news yesterday, agreeing that Andreas’ plight had acted to break down barriers between the two sides.
Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash – whose son Serdar has been among those contributing to the appeal – was quoted as saying he wished Andreas a "speedy recovery."
The government has already welcomed the Turkish response as a show of humanity.
Disy leader Nicos Anastassiades, Akel leader Demetris Christofias and Disy deputy Kate Clerides yesterday added their voices to those praising the Turkish response.
Anastassiades also stressed that the plight of 12-year-old Kemal should not be forgotten.
