The Windsor MP recently attended a Parliamentary event hosted by Team Margot. The campaign is named after Margot Martini, who sparked a worldwide campaign to find more stem cell donors after falling victim to a rare and aggressive form of leukaemia.

Team Margot is a charity set up to campaign to raise awareness of the lack of stem cell and bone marrow donors. 37,000 people worldwide need a bone marrow transplant, but unfortunately only half of those seeking a donor will ever find one. The odds are even lower for ethnic minority or mixed race patients: 21%.

Team Margot have been calling on the Government to bolster efforts, both in the UK and overseas, to increase the number of people signed up to registers and, in the three quarters of the countries in the world where a register doesn’t exist, help those countries set one up or to create a global ‘virtual’ register.

 

Adam Afriyie, the MP for Windsor, has said:

“Considering that blood cancer is in the top 10 most common causes of cancer death in the UK it is shocking that just 1.7% of the UK are signed up to the national registry. I wish Team Margot the best of luck in increasing this to their target of doubling this figure to 4%.

“However, this is also clearly a global issue due to the number of countries that do not have a stem cell register.

“I certainly learned a lot at the Parliamentary event and I would urge anyone who is surprised by these numbers to go to Team Margot’s website to find out more and consider registering.”

 

ENDS

Note to editors

1.    Adam Afriyie has a strong background and interest in science, technology and innovation due to his entrepreneurial background in the IT sector and a variety of posts he has held and/or currently holds, including Shadow Minister for Science, Chairman of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) and President of the Conservative Technology Forum (CTF).