Maharashtra: State government launching Bone Marrow registry project

Nagpur: In a effort to counter bone marrow donor deficits, the Fadnavis government is launching a bone marrow registry project on Sunday. Under this initiative, information related with human leucocyte antigen) type, identified after thorough testing in laboratories will be recorded of each donor, which will further aid in identifying the bone marrow type of the donor and make available the requirement when a patient is in need of transplant.

The launch program is scheduled at the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in Nagpur and the launch will be done by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The project will be implemented in all the sixteen medical colleges in the state, chief of directorate of medical education and research (DMER), Dr. Pravin Shingare told TOI.

Elaborating the donor-bone-marrow type indentification process, Dr. Shingare added "Doctors will be taking a swab from the mouth — a cheek swab of these willing individuals. The cells removed in the swab will be collected in a transport media. DNA from these cells be extracted and the HLA (human leucocyte antigen) type will be identified. This information about each prospective donor will be stored in the database and retrieved whenever a patient fails to get a donor.”

All the patients and their relatives at GMC’s will be encouraged to be a part of the scheme.

Dr Shingare also told the daily, “There are many diseases in which BMT is the only solution. Government realized that getting a donor for such patients from the family was increasingly becoming rare, which created seeking donors from the general public was seen as a good alternative.

The initiative will be a definite aid in retrieving patients suffering from life threatening diseases which require immediate Bone Marrow Transplant. The diseases such as variant types of blood cancer, genetic blood disorders like sickle cell and thalassaemia ae one such examples where BMT procedure is required.