Blood, they say, flows thicker than water. But a little girl with an extremely rare blood type who suffers from a congenital cardiac ailment received a gift of life thanks to the combined effort and generosity of complete strangers across Odisha, Jharkhand and Bengal.
Iteeshree, now 4, was born in Odisha’s Dhenkanal with a hole in her heart, a condition called ostium secundum atrial septal defect, which comprises 6% to 10% of all congenital heart defects. Because of this, in layman’s terms, the pure and impure blood gets mixed, overloading the heart. If not corrected promptly, the condition leads to serious heart ailments in the long run.
Iteeshree had the extremely rare Bombay blood group. The problem is that people with this blood group can only receive blood from someone who has Bombay blood, though they can donate it to anyone. In case of surgeries, where blood for transfusion has to be kept ready for the patient, this poses a serious challenge, since the Bombay blood group occurs only in 1 in 10,000 Indians.
Within a couple of days, Project Life Force, an NGO, traced Ghatshila resident Umakant Mandal, who had the same blood group. When requested, Umakant immediately agreed to travel to Howrah to help out the child.
Read more of this in a report by Sumati Yangkhom published in The Times of India...
People with such rare blood groups should let NGOs know of their 'rare treasure' and help whenever needed - they would be able to save precious lives....
