Pakistani baby saved in India

Doctors at New Delhi's Hospital named Sir Ganga Ram Hospital did India's first unrelated stem cell transplant on a just 1-year-old Pakistani boy on 15th March. Unfortunately Shaheer Imran had familial HLH and it is a rare disorder where the body's immune system over reacts occasionally and then starts eating up its own defence cells.

The Pakistani infant was in instant need of a bone marrow transplant. But since he did not have any of the siblings and had not a single donor in the family who matched his profile, doctors called to the Reliance Cord Bank in Mumbai.

Luckily, two cord blood units matching his profile were procured from the Reliance Cord bank. Cord blood is obtained from the umbilical cord of a newborn and is used to treat various blood-related and heritable disorders, as it contains stem cells.

First unit, with a 5/6 match, did not have enough cell dose, which means there were not enough cells capable of reproducing. To remain on the safe side, the doctors transplanted the other unit (with 4/6 match) as well.

"We just required making sure that if one unit doesn't work properly, the other one did," said by Doctor Anupam Sachdeva, senior consultant, department of paediatrics, Mr. Ganga Ram. It cost Rs 2.5 lakh to procure each cord blood unit, and the whole procedure cost the family around Rs 17 lakh. In the United States of America, the same procedure would have cost around Rs 2.5 crore which is more than 15 time higher than India.

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