In the last couple of weeks you may heard something about Lara Casalotti, the blood cancer patient searching for a mixed-race donor.
An online campaign to save the life of Lara, a 24-year-old, has attracted global attention and led to a significant rise in bone marrow donors.
According to Sky News, none of the 26 million people on bone marrow registers around the world are a match for Lara, who is of Thai and Italian heritage.
Lara said: “It was my family that looked into it really and found out that only 3% on the worldwide registers are of mixed-race origin which makes it much harder to find a match.”
Lara, who has been living with leukemia, has received support on social media from some of the most famous people in the world, including Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, Real Madrid footballer Gareth Bale, actors Mark Wahlberg, Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, singer Leona Lewis and even UK Prime Minister, David Cameron. See all their tweets below.
Asked how she felt about the backing she’s received on sites like Twitter and Facebook, she told Sky News: “It has all been so heartening. And getting messages from people I don’t even know, saying they have seen the campaign and they have gone to sign up is really wonderful and all the support just makes this whole process a lot easier really.”
This global movement ended up with an happy ending with Lara announcing this week that she has found a matching stem cell donor.
Thank you internet.
Learn more about blood cancer here: http://bit.ly/1NPto5Y
Mixed race? You can do something wonderful with your unique identity – save a life. Do read this: https://t.co/YeeYXuuHFI #match4lara
— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) January 9, 2016
Please RT! A Eurasian donor is desperately needed to save this young woman’s life. Do your thing, Twitter! https://t.co/oP24CINiOf
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 11, 2016
You could do a wonderful thing here: https://t.co/D9RTj0Lffv #match4lara
— Hugh Laurie (@hughlaurie) January 11, 2016
We need your help! Lara has leukaemia & needs a mixed race / BAME donor. Go to https://t.co/ukFY1hYxOT to see if you can help #match4lara ????
— Gareth Bale (@GarethBale11) January 12, 2016
#Match4Lara https://t.co/yT6bGQBmAY
— Mark Wahlberg (@mark_wahlberg) January 13, 2016
Lara was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, with her mixed race it’s so hard finding a donor, please share x https://t.co/7Uj3AaewXQ
— Leona Lewis (@leonalewis) January 13, 2016
.@David_Cameron says he supports the campaign for a bone marrow register raised by @TulipSiddiq #PMQs #Match4Lara https://t.co/70zu6QAtdk
— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 20, 2016
