Bone Marrow Campaign To Save 12-Year-Old Boy

Eighteen shopping malls around Israel will later this month ask visitors to give a saliva sample to find a compatible bone marrow donor for a 12-and-a-half-year-old boy, Or Yosipov, who suffers from leukemia.

The Kanyonei Yisrael group will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Monday, February 28, to collect the samples, which are collected on a little stick from the inside of the mouth the same way a throat culture is taken. A spokesman said it is doing the campaign as a public service.

Or was first diagnosed with the blood cancer at the age of five. He was treated as a little boy with aggressive chemotherapy for three years; this caused him many side effects and much suffering, but he went into remission. The disease returned, requiring more aggressive treatment, his doctors said. Chemotherapy is not enough; instead, he needs a bone marrow transplant from a compatible donor. So far, a suitable match was not found in databanks in Israel or abroad.