India lags behind in stem cell donors: Expert

India is far, far behind in its requirement of stem cell donors to treat life-threatening diseases like cancer, with only 500 transplants taking place annually compared to a requirement of 50,000, an international conference was told today.
Leading experts from the US, Germany and India met here for the International Bone marrow Transplant Summit to talk about the latest advances in stem-cell treatment of diseases.
What became clear during the deliberations of the summit, organised by an NGO Bharat Stem Cell, was lack of awareness about the importance of donating stem cells.
One of India's leading oncologists, Dr Vinod Raina told the conference that the country needed donors for some 50,000 stem cell transplants a year but currently only 500 transplants can be undertaken.

Dr Raina, Director of Medical Oncology and Hematology at Fortis Memorial Research Institute, pointed out that the US had a registry of 22 million donors in a population of 317 million, but in India the figure was a poor 40,000 donors in a population of 1.2 billion.