Kolkata: When 42-year-old Nilesh Kumar Sinha and 27-year-old Sajat Jain met in Kolkata on Thursday, it was a poignant moment for both of them.
While both are from Delhi, this was their first meeting.
For Nilesh, it was a moment of gratitude to Sajat for saving his life, while Sajat finally found the person whose life he had saved.
For a year and a half, Nilesh was getting stem cell transplants from Sajat who had registered through Datri, India’s largest unrelated blood stem cell registry organization.
Sajat, an entrepreneur in the healthcare sector, says his health is fine, a year and a half since the transplant took place. He says his decision to be a stem cell donor wasn't difficult. “The emotion didn’t come then, it came now. I had that feeling that I had saved a life but when I saw the person who has a family, it is the people around the person, and I ended up helping too. I am single and I have no dependents. Now that I know he lives in my city, why not stay in touch and interact with his family,” he said.
The World Marrow Donors Association does not permit a donor and recipient to meet for a year.
Nilesh, a logistics businessman with two children, is slowly getting back to normal life. He is undergoes kidney dialysis twice a week in Kolkata after getting medicines from a US based company which are still on trial, affected his kidneys.
He is optimistic, having come this far after suffering from jaundice in March 2015 and ultimately contracting a rare blood disorder called Plastic Anemia with 40% chances of survival. It is a rare disorder where the bone marrow stops producing white blood cells, platelets and hemoglobin. He went in for stem cell transplant in November that year at Tata Medical Centre in Kolkata.
He says dialysis is nothing compared to the pain he went through after he contracted the rare blood disorder. He undertook Antithymocyte Globulin or ATG where the bone marrow of a horse is transplanted. He got better but after six months, his platelet count started decreasing. He then consulted hospitals in the US, UK and Singapore where he was told to look for an Indian stem cell donor.
That is when he came across Datri. His first donor backed out on the 2nd day of the five-day process of transferring blood stem cells. Sajat stepped in to save his life. There were some complications after the transplant, but things then started looking up. “Today I am a more spiritual and knowledgeable person. I am writing about blood stem cell transplant and creating awareness on the subject. I will try and get 100 employees to register with Datri as donors from my company.” Nilesh said.
East India has few donors as compared to South India with Kerala having the highest number. West Bengal has 4785 registered donors with only eight of them who have donated blood stem cells so far.
Datri is supported from Tata Medical Centre in Kolkata and the challenge now is to create more awareness in the state. Abhijit Dutt (59) became the first donor from West Bengal 5 years ago. A manager in an FMCG company, Dutt decided to register as a donor when he was contacted by Datri. Dutt has been a regular blood donor. “My family supported me and the pain was minimal during the process. A Paracetemol could fix that. I went to work the next day. I help Datri and encourage other people to register as donors.” He said.
Blood stem cell transplant can cure blood disorders which include Leukemia and Thalassemia. Datri was founded in 2009 with their first successful transplant being in 2011. Till date the organization has 1,80,000 registered donors and has conducted 230 successful blood stem cell transplants. The Humam Leukocyte Antigen or HLA of the recipient and donor is matched in a laboratory in the US before a transplant is considered. Co-founder and CEO of Datri, Raghu Rajagopal says, “As a registry, we are immensely motivated to spread the awareness on the significance of becoming a blood stem cell donor so that many more lives can be saved.”
Datri is an NGO registered with Bone Marrow Donors worldwide and is a member of World Marrow Donors Association.
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