DUBAI, UAE
An 11-year-old Indian girl in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has a rare cancer and her family is racing against time to collect funds for her treatment. Martina Thomas, who will turn 12 June 4, started taking chemotherapy in Abu Dhabi a year ago after she was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukemia, a form of childhood cancer symptomized by an abnormally high white blood-cell count, The National reported Monday. Though she started taking the chemotherapy course immediately after she was diagnosed with the disease last year, it was not enough, and now she needs a bone marrow transplant. A screening for a match of her mother Dolly, father Shaji, brother Ken and sister Karen yielded negative results. The family then contacted international Bone Marrow Database Worldwide and found a perfect match in Germany in March. Though the donor is ready, the sheer cost – 600,000 dirhams or $ 163,354.20 of the treatment at the Christian Medical College at Vellore in Tamil Nadu, India, has stopped the family from starting the process of transplant. “I was very happy when a donor was found, but now I am praying only for the transplant to take place. We just desperately need the money. It would mean the world,” the report quoted Dolly Mathew as saying. The family, which lives on Shaji Mathew’s income as a salesman, has been unable to raise the money.