An army officer veteran with leukemia is walking from Beijing to
Hong Kong to draw attention to the need for bone marrow donations
in China. Sui Jiguo, 38, started his trip in Beijing on April 1 and
has just left Shaoguan, Guangdong Province.
“Only if society as a whole supports bone marrow donation can the
leukemia patient have more of a chance to survive,” said Sui. The
match rate between receiver and donor is only one in 10,000 for
people who are related and one in 100,000 for others.
Sui Jiguo hopes to arrive in Hong Kong on July 1, the fourth
anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China. Having earlier survived
a brain tumor, Sui Jiguo was diagnosed with leukemia three years
ago when he was told by doctors he had less than four years to
live.
Last year, Sui Jiguo traveled through 25 provinces to encourage
bone marrow donation. Following his appearance in May this year at
Wuhan University, Hubei Province, 124 students pledged to donate
their bone marrow.
As
he walks, Sui Jiguo wears a sign on his back which reads: “Hike
across China for Bone Marrow Donation.” He was recently joined by a
Hong Kong businessman, Huang Furong, who heard about Sui Jiguo
while returning to Guangdong to pay respect to his ancestors’
tombs. He gave up his own plans of traveling to Tibet to join
Sui.
The Shanghai Bone Marrow Bank founded in 1992 is China’s only
marrow bank. According to Yang Junyi, an official with the Red
Cross of Shanghai, the number of donors has remained low in China
in part because of unfounded concerns about health risks in
donating bone marrow.
"Drawing about 10 grams of bone marrow from the body's total amount
of 3,000 grams has no effect on people's health, because the bone
marrow can reproduce itself quickly," said Yang.
(China.org.cn 06/21/2001)