Trade urged to back new blood cancer campaign
PubAid director Martini is championing the campaign, which aims to increase the number of people on the bone marrow register by asking those who have already joined to encourage another person to do the same.
Last year, at just 14 months old, Margot was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of leukaemia. After an extensive worldwide campaign led by her family, more than 50,000 people requested swab kits to join the stem cell donor registry; eventually a suitable match was found for Margot and she received a bone marrow transplant in February this year.
Following a further appeal by Martini at the Publican Awards, held in March, guests raised £14,000 to help pay for extra swab kits.
As a direct result of Team Margot’s efforts to date, statistically there will be over 500 people who will now have the option of a donor match that could potentially save their life.
New campaign
The Just One More campaign aims to encourage even more people to join the stem cell registry.
Martini said: explains: "Margot’s appeal led to more than 35,000 people signing up to the UK stem cell register which is absolutely amazing. But when you consider how rare it is to be a match and how many tens of thousands of families are out there waiting for a donor, it still doesn’t scratch the surface. By asking people to encourage ‘Just One More’ person to register, we hope to raise the number of potential donors significantly.
“If everyone who has already joined the registry did this, there’d be almost a million more potential lifesavers on the register and together we would have achieved something remarkable.”
Unfortunately, in the last few weeks, Margot has relapsed and since then, the disease has developed quickly and aggressively. She is currently undergoing experimental treatment at Sheffield Children's Hospital in an attempt to bring the disease back into remission.
Those aged 16-55 who have not yet signed up to the UK stem cell donor register can find out more by visiting the Team Margot website.
Follow the campaign on Twitter @swab4margot
