Just over a year into the Matches on the Map inter-continental stem cell recruitment drive, a donor match was found in East London for a patient requiring a bone marrow stem cell transplant.
This is the first donor match that has been identified for a patient on the 64-country, 10-year voyage, which started in September 2023 when Robin Lewis, former stem cell transplant survivor and his wife, Jolandie left Mpumalanga on their epic journey.
To date the campaign has garnered more than 1 000 eligible stem cell donor sign-ups to the South African Bone Marrow Registry (SABMR).
Bradley Peters, a 23-year-old apprentice mechanic from East London, signed up with the Matches on the Map team at an awareness drive last year. Nearly six months to the day he received a call from the SABMR informing him that he was a potential match for a patient in far-flung South America. Peters, who went on to donate his stem cells, says he never thought that such a small act would result in potentially saving the life of another person 6 500 km across the South Atlantic Ocean.
“When they called me, I wasn’t sure if it was a scam as I had already forgotten that I had signed up to the SABMR. I had no idea that a cheek swab would be the beginning of saving someone’s life! After I received the call, the SABMR set the wheels in motion to conduct the necessary testing to confirm whether I was a suitable match.”
ONE IN 100 000 MATCH: Bradley Peters (23), an apprentice mechanic from East London, has been identified as a stem cell donor match for a patient in South America. Peters signed up by chance during an awareness drive for the Matches on the Map campaign last year, making him the first confirmed match for a patient, not only in the country, but across the 64-country, 10-year voyage. The campaign is spearheaded by former transplant survivor, Robin Lewis and his wife Jolandie.
The chance of finding a suitable stem cell donor match for any patient is 1 in 100 000 and the odds increase even further based on ethnicity. The donor pool in South Africa is unfortunately not reflective of the country’s population, meaning that the chance of finding a donor for patients of colour is near impossible.
Peters says while his family was initially sceptical about him donating his stem cells due to them not understanding the procedure, they were fully behind him. He says if he could do it again, he would do so in a heartbeat.
“My family didn’t fully grasp what a stem cell transplant was. Once I explained to them that it was not invasive and that it would not harm me in any way, but rather save someone’s life, I had their full support. I still can’t believe that I was part of something this special, I have always wanted to give back in some way, I never thought that this would be my fate. Every day is another chance to be a better person and if I could do it, so could anyone else.”