This project aims to make the WMDA Education provided at the International Donor Registry Conference available to more healthcare professionals from World Bank Indexed Low Income and Lower-Middle Income countries. You will be helping healthcare professionals directly, though indirectly helping their patients as their knowledge increases and they join a community with over 50 years of experience and hundreds of best practices.
Globally, only 57 countries have donor registries who recruit and safeguard voluntary blood stem cell donors. The donors make life-saving stem cell transplant possible for patients with blood cancer and blood disorders. Every year, medical advances are made in this field, increasing the chances of patients finding a matching donor and increasing the chance of survival for the patient. However, this knowledge and education is not always able to reach healthcare professionals in Africa.
The WMDA community are meeting in South Africa, Cape Town in June 2024. We would like to invite as many healthcare professionals working in Africa to attend this educational conference as possible. However, as a non-profit organisation, we do not have the financial resources available to fund complimentary passes. It is our hope that this microproject will be able to fund the WMDA in inviting healthcare professional involved in stem cell and bone marrow transplantation to attend our conference.
The potential long-term impact could be groundbreaking. There are 54 countries in Africa, though currently only 1 country, South Africa has donor registries recruiting donors and serving patients. The project will fund us inviting 12 healthcare professionals from 12 different African countries to learn more about stem cell transplantation, donor recruitment and retention and also about blood cancer and blood disorders such as Sickle Cell Disease, Thalassemia, Aplastic Anaemia.