Acting on CSR by Saving the Lives of Children in Need of Transplantation

Based on its mission statement, MAHAK inaugurated a bone marrow transplantation ward in 2011 to provide all-purpose support for cancer-stricken children but there has always been a challenge for supplying stem cells to the patients in need of transplantation since there is a 25-percent-chance for each patient to receive stem cells from relatives and being an only child in the family decreases this possibility. This factor and some other limitations such as low number of stem cell donators in the country, the high cost of searching for matching stem cells in international stem cell banks, the difficulty in transferring the stem cells from other countries and genetic incompatibility of samples received from abroad made us inaugurate MAHAK’s registration center for donating hematopoietic stem cells.

After years of doing research on treating cancer through transplantation, MAHAK has inaugurated this center which has been its long-time concern. In order to meet the cost of the tests and experiments on 5000 primary donated samples at MAHAK registration center, which is the main challenge of other alike centers, MAHAK has signed an MOU with a private sector entity under the rubric of a social responsibility action. According to this one-year MOU, Bahman Motor Co. and Bahman Diesel Co. are committed to funding the HLA typing experiments of 5000 donated samples of hematopoietic stem cells by allocating a fixed percentage of their sales revenue to this end. More than 3500 stem cell samples have been donated to MAHAK’s registration center for donating hematopoietic stem cells up to February 2018.

Since the value of such centers is based on the number of registered samples in accordance with global standards, business enterprises have also encouraged their employees to submit their samples to MAHAK’s center in order to fulfill their social responsibility. In the same vein the CEO and staff of Roche Pars Ltd. were present at MAHAK on 28 February, 2018 for the mentioned altruistic purpose.

We hope that the benevolent presence of donors will assist us in realizing the toolkits of UICC’s World Cancer Day campaign saying that “Join forces to make a difference” and will make MAHAK’s registration center for donating hematopoietic stem cells the most efficient center in the Middle East so that it can meet the demands of all the patients in need in addition to the cancer-stricken children.