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Hanover (dpa / lni) - The partial lockdown to combat the corona pandemic is making it increasingly difficult to find stem cell donors for leukemia sufferers.

In Lower Saxony alone, 47 blood cancer patients were waiting "desperately for a suitable donor for their life-saving stem cell transplant," said the manager of the North German Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Donor Register (NKR), Marlena Robin-Winn.

Nationwide there are 1184 patients, worldwide there are "masses of patients" waiting for a donor.

In the pandemic with its restrictions, however, public typing campaigns have become impossible.

“With the lockdown, these actions must now be stopped.

This is tragic, because leukemia and similar diseases are constantly taking their deadly toll and we are fighting desperately against it, ”said Robin-Winn.

There have been no campaigns since March, so try to motivate people via social media networks.

Many held back, did not want to go to the hospital for typing - but the typing set would be sent home, she said.

The test is carried out by swabbing the inside of the cheek with a cotton swab.

Among the 47 blood cancer patients are five children from the age of six weeks.

Many patients had been waiting for their transplant for over a year, some up to two years.

Patients and relatives are in a waiting loop, which also leads to the psychological limit.

"The corona crisis made the situation even worse," said Robin-Winn.

"It's very hard."

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The global search for donors is also facing problems in the Corona crisis.

It is difficult to find donors for people with a migration background - "We find very few potential donors in German registers for those affected in particular and therefore have to make more inquiries from abroad," said the doctor.

But that is difficult because of international restrictions.

The NKR, which has been set up since 1996, claims to be the largest North German register for typed stem cell donors and operates nationwide.

Since it was founded, potential lifeguards have been found for over 1,700 people, and a total of 270,000 donors are recorded in the register.

Around 13,700 people in Germany developed leukemia every year.

NKR donor check