Vietnamese community rallies support for leukemia patient Mai Duong

Mai Duongs crusade to find a compatible bone marrow or stem cell donor in Quebec has again pushed the issue of under-representation of non-white donors into thespotlight.

Duong is Vietnamese, and needs a Vietnamese donor to help save her from acute leukemia.

• Leukemia patient calls on visible minorities to donate stem cells

The problem is, only one per cent of people on the Quebec and international donor registries are of Vietnamese descent.

There is no bone marrow registry at all in Vietnam, according to Hma-Qubec.

Duong's husbandVlad Stesin said a transplant is her best hope of survival. This is her second bout with the disease since being diagnosed in January 2013.

NDP MP Hoang Mai and other members of Montreals Vietnamese community held a news conference Thursday to raise awareness about the under-representation of Vietnamese and all non-white donors in the blood and tissue bank.

In Quebec, just 4.7 per cent of blood donors are visible minorities; 19 per cent of bone marrow donors are non-white.

Mai swabbed the inside of his cheek at the news conference to demonstrate how easy it is to sign up to the bone marrow registry.

Doctors Olivier Diec from Charles-LeMoyne Hospital and Ba-Khoa Nguyen were also at the news conference, along with Duongs husband and parents.

Duong is currently in at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital awaiting a donor. She said its the only way she can have a fighting chance of beatingleukemia.

Hma-Qubec said people who want to donate umbilical cord stem cells or bone marrow to their bank can register online to receive a DNA swab test in the mail or call 514-832-5000.