Mother's appeal for bone marrow donor

A mother of four has written to The Sunday Times appealing for help in finding a bone marrow donor for her seriously ill son.

Donna Zammit's son Jamie, eight, who was born at St Luke's Hospital in 1998, was diagnosed as suffering from an extremely rare blood disorder called Fanconi Anaemia last April. His only hope of survival is a bone marrow transplant.

Mrs Zammit (née Pace) is married to a Maltese. The couple have four sons, two of whom were born in Malta. The family was based in Malta in 2004 and 2005 but staff at St Luke's Hospital advised the Zammits to take Jamie to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London for tests, where they were given the dreadful news.

The family moved to Bromley Common, London, soon after and Great Ormond Street Hospital is searching worldwide for a perfect match donor for Jamie. But the search has proved difficult and Mrs Zammit is desperate to speed up the search to save her son's life.

Fanconi anaemia is caused by the hereditary loss of both copies of the Fanconi anaemia gene. People with the condition (named after Swiss paediatrician Guido Fanconi who discovered it) face an increased risk of contracting cancer and other serious illnesses, most live until their mid-20s, and many are born with skeletal abnormalities. Carrier frequency is estimated to be around one in 300 people.

Jamie's story has been featured on the front page of News Shopper and in Kent on Sunday earlier this month.

Mrs Zammit told News Shopper she was even considering IVF treatment to conceive a child which does not carry the faulty Fanconi gene as a last resort to save her Jamie. Specialists would then harvest the stem cells from the baby's umbilical cord and inject them into Jamie.

"I have been informed that in most cases such as mine, where there is more than one child, I will be declined IVF treatment as I have other children and it would be unethical to bring another child into the world," she told News Shopper.

"I cannot understand this. I can appreciate the ethics surrounding these issues but the ultimate goal is to save someone's life, knowing treatment is available, instead of giving someone a life sentence."

Jamie, a pupil at Princes Plain Primary School, is taking steroids to keep his blood counts stable and he has regular transfusions. But his mother fears that the longer he continues this treatment the less likely his body is to accept the bone marrow.

Mrs Zammit is urging Maltese people to ask family and friends in the UK to sign up to the UK bone marrow register, The Anthony Nolan Trust, (www.anthonynolan.org.uk, tel. (0044) 207-284-1234) to become donors.

"My husband and I are also appealing to the Maltese community here in London through the Maltese Culture Movement Club," Mrs Zammit told The Sunday Times. "As Jamie is Maltese, maybe the best way of finding a perfect match donor for him would be from someone in the Maltese community," she said.