Two-year-old Zainab, is in need of extremely rare blood in order to survive her battle with cancer. The toddler, who lives in Florida, was diagnosed in October with a neuroblastoma, an aggressive cancer that usually occurs in children, The Washington Post reported.
OneBlood, a non-profit organization has launched a worldwide campaign to locate very specific donors who could be a possible match. The child’s blood is missing a common antigen, called Indian B, and if she receives blood with this antigen, her body will reject it.
According to OneBlood, donors must be Pakistani, Indian or Iranian descent and the blood type must be “O”, or “A”. Statistically, the only people who are likely to be a match for Zainab are people of Pakistani, Indian or Iranian descent. Of these populations, less than 4% of the people are actually missing the Indian B antigen.
Strangers’ Kindness Is Zainab’s Hope
“The results came in and the results were really bad,” her father, Raheel Mughal, said in a video. “We were all crying. This was like the worst thing we were expecting.”
“We have a zero percent chance of finding compatible blood for this little girl if we look in pretty much any other ethnic group,” Frieda Bright, a lab manager with OneBlood, said in a video provided by the organization. “We are searching the world to try to find blood for this little girl.”
So far, three matching donors have been located, including a donor located in the United Kingdom. It’s the first time OneBlood has ever received an international donor for a local patient. The other two matching donors are from the United States.
OneBlood says that ideally, it will be able to locate donors of these ethnicities who live in the United States.