In a solidarity action, an agent of the Buenos Aires Penitentiary Service (SPB), who lives in La Plata and performs duties in a San Martín prison, donated bone marrow after receiving a call from the Central National Institute for Ablation and Implantation (INCUCAI). in which they announced that he was compatible with a person who needs to be transplanted.
This is Andrés Miranda, a 23-year-old from La Plata, who finished high school in his neighborhood, at the Mother of Divine Grace School, and continued in the footsteps of his father Jorge, a major non-commissioned officer who currently works in the Unit 10 Melchor Romero.
Andrés enrolled in the Instituto Superior de Formación Técnica No. 6001 “Inspector General Baltasar Armando Iramain”, better known as the Cadet School, and graduated as an officer and now works in Unit 48 San Martín.
With the endorsement of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of the province of Buenos Aires and in an initiative that is constantly promoted from the educational establishment belonging to the Buenos Aires Penitentiary Service (SPB), Andrés attended the Hemotherapy Institute of La Plata to donate blood and It was there that he decided to sign up as a voluntary bone marrow donor in the National Registry of Hematopoietic Progenitor Cells (CPH).
Although from the outset the agent was informed that a long time could pass between the registration stage and the donation stage, or even never take this step, six months ago he received a call from INCUCAI announcing that it was compatible with a patient requiring a HPC transplant somewhere in the world.
Without hesitation, Andrés ratified his will and stated: “Beyond the fact that my family helped me understand the importance of this action, it did not cost me anything, because I know that there is a person who is having a hard time and who needs something to I can give it”.
From the INCUCAI contact, the young prisoner underwent various medical studies and interviews, prior to the cell extraction procedure.
Then, in the four days before the practice, he had to receive injections of Filgrastim, a drug that causes the bone marrow to produce and release many stem cells into the bloodstream, in both of his arms.
“In those days I did not feel well. I had bone pain, a headache, and some dizziness,” said Andrés, who never thought of stopping, despite the side effects of the medication.
Finally, last Monday, he was admitted as an outpatient at the German Hospital in Buenos Aires, accompanied by his mother, and there, in a process called donation by apheresis, he was connected to a machine that allows separating the components of the blood and extracting only the cells needed by the person who requires the transplant.
Like his family, Andrés was extremely excited and admitted that he would like to contact the receiver, although he clarified that “it could be possible in about a year.”
Two donors per month in Argentina
Beyond the altruism of this fact, it is appropriate to clarify that it is very difficult to find compatibility between donor and recipient, and that only one in four patients finds someone compatible within their family.
According to official information from INCUCAI, the National Registry of Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell Donors (CPH) has more than 330,000 registered donors.
However, due to the previously described difficulty, from the date of its foundation, in 2003, and up to March of this year, Argentina was able to provide 473 bone marrow donors: 248 for patients from our country and 225 for patients from abroad.
The numbers indicate that in Argentina, since 2003, the average number of bone marrow donors has been almost two per month.
