Bone Marrow Recruitment Drive for the Hispanic Community

Every year, approximately 40,000 children and adults are afflicted with fatal diseases such as leukemia and aplastic anemia. We can prevent many of these deaths with a bone marrow transplant.

The communities of Brazilians, Hispanics, African-Americans, and others known as minorities in the United States have been the main targets of our work due to the fact that the probability of finding a donor for a patient in the same ethnic group is 1 to 20,000.

The total number of donors registered by ethnic group, is shown on the graph offered to us by the NMDP. As of December 31, 1999, 3,849,149 volunteer potential donors are registered with the National Marrow Donor Program.

From that graph, we can conclude the urgent need for raising the number of minority donors. Then we can offer all those children and adults who are in need of a Bone Marrow Transplant a chance for a healthy and happy life.

The Icla da Silva Foundation, founded after the death of 13-year-old Icla da Silva who had leukemia, is the largest Hispanic bone marrow recruitment center in the United States and the largest Official Bone Marrow Recruitment Group in the United States for the National Marrow Donor Program Registry.

Every new donor added to the National Registry will provide hope for thousands of patients from all over the world waiting for a compatible donor. Out of 6.3 million volunteer donors already in the registry only 7-8% are Hispanic or African-American and lower for Asian Americans. It is because of this under representation that we have set a challenging goal in 2007 of recruiting 15,000 new ethnic minority donors into the Registry as the Icla da Silva Foundation celebrates its 15th Anniversary in 2007.

If you or your organization want to work with us in organizing a Marrow Registration Drive and to find out more about Icla da Silva Foundation, becoming a bone marrow or blood cell donor, and other ways to help, please call our toll free number 1-866-FDN-ICLA (1-866-336-4252), send us an e-mail Info@icla.org or visit our website www.icla.org.