DKMS teams up with football clubs to raise awareness of blood stem cell donation

Blood cancer charity DKMS is teaming up with football clubs up and down the country in a bid to raise awareness of blood stem cell donation and to register donors. Football Vs Blood Cancer is a new campaign being run by DKMS following support from clubs such as Everton.

A blood stem cell donation is the only chance of survival for many blood cancer patients. Sadly, many patients will not find a matching donor. This isn’t because a match doesn’t exist, it’s simply because there aren’t enough people registered as donors. That is why DKMS works to increase the size and diversity of the blood stem cell registry.

It has launched Football Vs Blood Cancer because younger people, especially men, have a better chance of being chosen to donate, and it believes that the football community is one the best places it can find lifesavers. The diversity of the football community is important too as patients are most likely to find a matching donor from a similar ethnic background but often they have difficulty in finding suitable donors.

Patrick Ryan, who is leading DKMS’s Football Vs Blood Cancer campaign, said:

Football has a huge and passionate fan base and inspires those who support it. In partnership with clubs of all sizes in Cheshire, we can reach a large proportion of the general public who don’t yet know how easy it is to save a life.

Patrick wants football clubs large and small in Cheshire to join the campaign and says that they can take part in a variety of ways including giving people the chance to register by holding match day swabbing events; raising awareness on social media; promotion within match day programmes and stadium screens/billboards, plus player/staff involvement.

Source: https://www.dkms.org.uk/