Lions Club Landsberg starts typing campaign

Created: 04/25/2022, 18:00

By: Ulrike Osman

The chairman of the Lions Club Landsberg Gerhard Meitinger hopes for many visitors to the typing campaign on May 7th on the main square.

© Symbolic photo: Panthermedia

Landsberg – Lions are looking for lifeguards – this is the motto under which the Lions Club Landsberg, in cooperation with the Bavaria Bone Marrow Donation Foundation (AKB), is conducting a typing campaign on Saturday, May 7th.

We are looking for healthy people between the ages of 17 and 45 who would be willing to donate stem cells to potentially save the life of a leukemia patient.

The first step in the typing campaign is to register your tissue characteristics in the globally networked AKB database after taking a small amount of blood.

If the tissue characteristics of a leukemia patient match those of a donor, further investigations and the final decision of the potential stem cell donor to donate his healthy stem cells to his "genetic twin" takes place.

In this way he can give this patient the hope of getting well again and give him the chance of a new life.

This practice saves a large number of lives around the world every year.

"We want to support that," says Gerhard Meitinger, President of the Lions Club Landsberg.

We want to help save people who are at risk of death from leukemia.” Meitinger hopes that as many suitable donors as possible will take part in the typing campaign.

"Sleeves up against blood cancer - let yourself be typed," was his request to fellow human beings.

Meitinger can understand that one has respect for the step towards stem cell donation.

It was the same for him in the past, he reports.

But information helps against fear.

And that's why the organizers have invited stem cell donors, stem cell recipients and specialists who will report on the topic in live interviews parallel to the typing campaign.

A stage will be set up on the main square for this purpose.

Professor Hans-Jochem Kolb, pioneer of stem cell transplantation in Germany, will also be there.

A corresponding explanation before registering as a stem cell donor also takes place.

If you don't have time to come to the typing campaign, you can still register.

A set with everything needed for typing can be ordered online at www.akb.de.

The sample then goes postage paid to the AKB.

Since the costs for the new registration of donors - 35 euros per person - are neither borne by the state nor by the health insurance companies, the AKB is dependent on monetary donations.

Anyone who would like to donate can transfer an amount to the account IBAN DE67 7025 0150 0022 3946 88, intended for LionsClub LL.