According to the National Marrow Donor Program, just 7 percent of the nation’s 10 million registered potential bone marrow donors are African-American. The Program’s Be The Match® registry program aims to improve this number through a national awareness campaign this July, which is African-American Bone Marrow Awareness Month.
Registry events will be held nationwide to encourage more African-Americans to step forwad and join the registry, and you can go online to www.SWABplusDNA.org to learn the facts about donation.
According to the Program, since 2004 the number of transplants among African-Americans has doubled, but fo rpatients with ethnically diverse backgrounds the likelihood of finding a match can be as low as 66 percent, versus 93 percent for Caucasians.
For more information on Be The Match, visit www.marrow.org.
