A desperate worldwide hunt is on for a rare blood match with a two-year-old girl who has an aggressive form of cancer.
The girl, Zainab Mughal, has an extremely rare blood type and needs donors to sustain her long-term treatment.
Zainab, from Florida, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma two months ago.
While three donors have been located – including one in the UK – at least seven more volunteers are desperately needed for Zainab’s blood transfusions going forward. More than 1,000 local samples have been taken, but to no avail.
Raheel Mughal, Zainab’s father, said of the diagnosis: “We were all crying. This was like the worst thing we were expecting.”
Zainab’s blood is extremely rare because she is missing a common antigen, “Indian B”, that most people carry in their red blood cells.
For a person to be a possible match with Zainab, they must also be missing the Indian B antigen, otherwise the little girl's body will reject the blood.
The only people who are likely to be a match for Zainab are people of exclusively Pakistani, Indian or Iranian descent. Of these populations, less than four per cent of the people are actually missing the Indian B antigen. Additionally, they must also have the blood type "O" or "A".
Mr Mughal added: “We will definitely need more blood. If you are one of those people from the Middle East, please go out and donate the blood for my daughter.
“Once my daughter grows, I am going to remind her of the efforts to save her life when she was a child.”
The search is being led by the OneBlood charity. For more information, visit oneblood.org/zainab
