Sindh CM to open bone marrow transplant unit at DUHS Ojha Campus

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah will inaugurate the first bone marrow transplant unit at the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) Ojha Campus on Saturday (today), ARY News reported.

The bone marrow transplant (BMT) unit has been the first such health facility at a public hospital in Sindh that will treat the patients of various types of blood cancer.

The transplant unit has become operational in March when a team of haematologists and physicians at the DUHS Ojha Campus performed the first bone marrow transplant there.

The provincial government had earlier ordered release of Rs. 500 million for provincial bone marrow transplantation programme aimed at treatment of kids suffering from blood cancer and other related disorders.

BMT is a specialised procedure in which diseased marrow of a person is replaced with that of a healthy person, and in most of the cases, patients suffering from thalassaemia and various types of blood cancers undergo BMT so that they body can start producing healthy blood cells.

Several bone marrow transplant attempts by different public health facilities, including the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, were failed in the past due to various reasons, compelling patients to seek this specialised treatment at a handful of private facilities.