Facebook Launches Campaign for Transplant Donors to Save Lives of Ailing Children

The social networking site, Facebook, has launched a campaign to inspire people to become members of tissue transplant registers, in a bid to get transplant donors for chronically ill children.

The idea behind such a campaign on a social networking website is to widen the number of members in order to increase the chances of finding a perfect transplant donor.

This campaign calling for registration of transplant donors perhaps started after the response to the appeal from parents of 23-month-old Iona Stratton, who was suffering from leukaemia.

Iona’s parents had requested for donors on the social networking site, face book. The plea resulted in the registration of 7000 members and helped find the perfect transplant donor within few weeks of the appeal.

The appeal on Facebook had obviously helped create wide awareness, although in this case, the child could not survive, despite the transplant surgery.

According to Claire Stratton, Iona's aunt, donor anonymity made it impossible to ascertain if the donor match came from the facebook donor registrations, yet the appeal had certainly increased the pool of potential donors, and with that the chances of finding a right match.

Miss Stratton said: "Facebook has raised awareness. People don't realise individuals from mixed ethnic backgrounds don't make up a huge number on donor registers. People have been in touch with us and gone on to join registers."

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Source-Medindia
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