A seriously ill woman from Upper Norwood is still hopeful that a donor will come forward that will give her the life-saving bone-marrow match she so desperately needs.

Azeezat Adeyemi is one of three black Londoners who urgently need a transplant but whose only obstruction is a lack of suitable donors from the black community.

But a Croydon charity is hoping all this will change.

Thirty-eight-year-old Azeezah, from Beulah Hill, is suffering from Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma, a blood-related cancer.

She was diagnosed three years ago but suffered a relapse in November 2002 and has been told her only option now is a bone-marrow transplant.

Azeezat's chances of getting a donor are slim because currently black recipients' odds plummet below those of a white cancer-sufferer.

If you are white, the chances of you finding a match from an unrelated donor are around one in 10, compared to one in 250,000 if you are black.

Because bone marrow is an inherited characteristic, sufferers are most likely to find a match amongst their own ethnic groups in this case people of African, African-Caribbean and mixed-race heritage. But very few in these groups are registered as potential donors.

However, a Croydon charity is hoping all this will change with its continued efforts to raise awareness of the issue.

When Beverly De-Gale and her partner Orin Lewis founded the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust, they could not have known just how much they would improve the chances of those in need of a transplant.

In the last seven years the number of black donors on the national register has risen from 585 to 14,000 thanks to the work of the ACLT.

Beverly and Orin founded the ACLT in 1996 after her son Daniel, then aged eight, was diagnosed with leukaemia.

April 30, 2003 12:30