Five weeks. So much remains to live, according to the doctors, for the little one and a half year old Alessandro Maria, who cannot find a bone marrow donor compatible with his. The parents, supported by Admo, the Bone Marrow Donors Association, are asking for help to save the little one. On the web and social networks, a sincere solidarity competition has been launched for Ale
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerous
A race against a mocking time. Five weeks. So much remains to live, according to the doctors, to the little one and a half year old Alessandro Maria, who cannot find a bone marrow donor compatible with his. The parents, supported by Admo, the Bone Marrow Donors Association, are asking for help to save the little one. A sincere solidarity contest has been launched on the web and social networks.
The child has haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, also known as HLH, a genetic disease that affects only 0,002% of children. Unfortunately, this is a pathology that does not give a chance unless a bone marrow transplant is carried out thanks to a compatible donor.
50% of children with HLH die within one month of the onset of the disease while about a third develop an irreversible deficit of the neurological system.
Ale immediately proved to be a little warrior.
“I started making my parents desperate right away as I was born in week no. 30 and, although the doctors had already given me up for dead, I fought like a ram (my zodiac sign) against an endless series of complications to still be here. When things were finally going a little better and I was happy to spend my first beach holiday with mum and dad, unfortunately I started to feel bad again " we read in the appeal written to help the little one.
Alessandro was brought back to London, the city where he lives with his parents. After nearly two weeks of high fever and tests in 3 different hospitals, the doctors discover that he is at all from Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis. Unfortunately this is bad news. Although he is being treated with an experimental cure, it is not known how effective the drug may be. According to doctors, the child most likely has just 5 weeks left to find a bone marrow donor (i.e. by 30/11/2018).
"Since I am an only child, and therefore I have no brother or sister who can donate their marrow to me, my parents searched both in the world register of bone marrow donors and in that of umbilical cords but unfortunately it does not exist to date no compatible donor. So I just have to look for my sister or my older brother elsewhere ... "
A compatible bone marrow can save him
The hopes of the child and those of his mother and father are hanging by a thread and that thread today also runs on social networks. In fact, the solidarity competition has started to find a marrow compatible with that of Ale. Today, donating bone marrow is really simple, without any intervention in the operating room, with a simple sample of blood or saliva.
"Stem cells can be donated with a simple blood sample, with the same syringe that is used when you go to donate blood, but with the only difference that while the blood groups are 8, the bone marrow combinations are billions and only a laboratory procedure known as tissue typing it can determine their compatibility ”, reads the official page.
How to help Alessandro Maria
Numerous initiatives are underway to help the child find a compatible marrow. In Naples and Rome, dedicated events will be organized in the coming days.
Saturday 27 October from 9 to 19 in Piazza Trieste e Trento, a Naples, it will be possible to perform the typing with a simple salivary swab.
Monday 29 October at the Department of Agriculture of the Federico II University of Portici, doors open in search of a donor, from 9-19.
On November 20 Rome will host We give the best of us. From 9 to 15.30 at La Sapienza University, in piazzale Aldo Moro 5, it will be possible to take the test.
Regardless of these initiatives, today getting your own tissue typing is simple, just go to the ADMO website or contact the nearest hospital.
“Don't let me and other children lose the hope of growing up and playing. Ask for information on how to do your tissue typing and share this message with as many people as you can because it has to reach the far corners of the universe where perhaps the person who can help me is hidden! " is the appeal launched by the Facebook page dedicated to Alessandro Maria.
Let's try to help him, it takes very little to save a life.
Francesca Mancuso
