Anya LeFrancis, an Indian American fourth grade girl from Chester, New Jersey is battling leukemia and looking for a bone marrow donor with similar ancestry: South Asian and European. The little girl’s parents are in search for a donor and asking anyone, regardless of race, to register through DKMS, a bone marrow donation registry. The transplant must take place by May 2017 to save her life.
Out of 25 million registered donors, the bone marrow transplant team at Hackensack University Medical Center did not find one full match, according to an email by her father Robert LeFrancis. Anya’s unique heritage makes it even more difficult to find a perfect match from the donor registries – Anya is part Caucasian/European and part Indian. Only 3 percent of registered donors are of mixed race, and of that 3 percent, finding her mix of heritage in a donor is very challenging, the email said.
“It is unknown at this time if there will be a match at the registry, but we are trying to get as many people to sign up as possible using the link posted on her page,” said Anya’s mother Pratibha LeFrancis, the Patch reported.
The fourth grader is battling leukemia, and doctors believe her best chance at recovery is a bone marrow transplant. She was first diagnosed in kindergarten and went into remission in third grade. During this school year, Anya began complaining of pain again, and on Jan. 11, doctors diagnosed her with relapsed leukemia.