Nicosia - A 13-year-old Turkish Cypriot boy with leukaemia died at a London hospital six months after the island's two communities united in a search for bone marrow donors for him and a six-year-old Greek Cypriot child, Michael Jansen reports from Nicosia.
More than 50,000 Greek and Turkish Cypriots had their blood tested in the race to find matches for Kemal Saracoglu and Andreas Vassiliou. The chances of finding a donor are only one in 35,000. Both boys ran out of time.
When no marrow donor was found within the first two months of the campaign, Andreas went to Houston, Texas, where he had a white blood cell transplant. The operation, which has a success rate of 40-50 per cent, was carried out during the last days of the boy's period of remission. Andreas is doing well and is expected to return to Cyprus this month.
However, a donor for Kemal was discovered only in July, when his remission had lapsed, missing the opportunity for a successful transplant.