Baby Anvi finds bone marrow match

Tears of happiness rolled freely down the cheeks of Ruchita and Rupesh Pednekar on Saturday After a worldwide search doctors have finally found a donor whose bone marrow cells matched with their 17monthold daughter But even this momentous news has come with a rider a price tag that is currently unaffordable for the Kandivlibased couple Ruchita and Rupesh Pednekar with their daughter Anvi who suffers from Infantile Myelofibrosis Doctors say the cost of transporting the stem cells from the US to Bangalore would be extremely high and the entire procedure including hospitalisation and surgery charges could cross Rs 25 lakh Had it been an Indian donor the cost for the treatment would have varied between Rs1215 lakh Speaking to SMD Ruchita said ldquoI received an SMS from Dr Shobha Badiger on January 30 informing us that they had traced a donor for Anvi in the US She asked us to come to Bangalore immediatelyrdquo ldquoWe have spent nearly Rs95000 on our initial visit to Bangalore and have around Rs 1650 lakh left in the bank thanks to so many people who helped Now we have been told we need Rs 9 lakh more I have written to various trusts and charitable institutionsrdquo she said The Sunday Mid DAY report published on December 2 2012 resulted in an outpouring of global support for Anvi Anvi will be taken to Dr Devi Prasad Shettyrsquos Narayana Hrudayalaya in Bangalore once again where Dr Shobha Badiger consulting Pediatric HematoOncology expert and Dr Sharat Damodar who is also a hematologist and heads the bone marrow transplant unit of the hospital who had initially examined Anvi would carry out the transplant When contacted Dr Damodar said ldquoThe child is yet to come to Bangalore Once she arrives we will start the initial line of investigations and hopefully the transplant will be done The entire process will involve two to three months stay in the hospitalrdquo Speaking exclusively to SMD from Bangalore Chairman of Narayana Hrudayalaya Group Dr Devi Prasad Shetty said ldquoI am aware of Anvirsquos case We will provide all possible financial concessionsrdquo Dr Shetty who was conferred the Padma Bhushan in 2012 lamented the abysmal awareness about umbilical cord blood banking in India ldquoWe do not have public cord blood banking in our country Over 28 million babies are born in a year and the irony is that we discard 28 million umbilical cords without preserving them as storage of each cord costs between Rs 30000 to Rs 40000 The government should create cord banks Even if we have 150 lakh cords available it would reduce the waiting period for a large number of patientsrdquo The Indian registry has a list of only 25000 donors Compared to this the US and some European nations have around 4 million donors each The cost for procuring the stem cells from India cost around Rs 68 lakh The cost is Rs 20 lakh if it has to be imported ldquoWe have been encouraging people to become stem cell donors by registering themselves with Indian registry site wwwdatriworldorg Around 200 ml to 300 ml of white cells are taken from the donorrsquos body which is sufficient to treat a single caserdquo Dr Damodar added For now till the stem cells arrive in Bangalore Anvi will be taken to Jaslok hospital for another course of blood transfusion on Monday The plight of the Pednekar family who had lost their elder child and was fighting to save little Anvi was first reported by SMD lsquoSpent couple battle to save daughterrsquo December 2 2012 Within a week of the report being published the family received overwhelming support from wellwishers from North America Europe and the Middle East donating over Rs 1650 lakh for treatment Ruchita said she wants to spread awareness about stem cell donations ldquoWe will register as donors of stem cells with DATRI a nonprofit organisation that has been set up to help save lives of those suffering from lifethreatening disorders like leukemia and lymphomardquou00a0