A 13-year-old girl suffering from heart disease has sent out a desperate life or death plea for donors of a rare type of blood.

Wang Hong needs an operation urgently, but there is no guarantee she would survive without a sufficient supply of AB-negative blood.

"There are only 3 in 10,000 people with RH-negative AB blood type, and barely more than 20 are registered in Changchun," said Zhao Keyan, a doctor from the Jilin Heart Disease Hospital, who is in charge of the operation. "Up to the present, the Changchun blood reserve center has only 300 millilitres of backup of this type, which is far less than the operation needs."

Wang Hong is a shy girl. When she meets strangers, she always lowers her head and clasps her hands behind her back. It is even hard for her to breathe and walk when the weather is cold or she has a bad day. Her lips and nails are all purple and black.

"A bad accident happened to her family," said Wang Jinlan, her aunt, who has been with her in the cardiac ward. "Her father suffered from post-polio syndrome, and her mother left them when she was 3. She was brought up by her grandmother."

But despite her poor health and the family's lack of money, she persisted in helping her grandmother do housework. Then last December, her grandmother's death left her devastated.

People in Changchun heard of her misfortune and began to do something about it. Some donations have come in, and the Jilin provincial charity department has also pitched in so that she doesn't need to worry about the high medical costs.

Although more than 200 people visited the Changchun blood center to test their blood types, only a local journalist had the right kind.

"But this afternoon a soldier came in and said he had AB-negative blood and once donated blood to a person of the same type," Zhao said. "He said if the girl needs blood, he can find that person, and they would donate together.

"Under those circumstances, we plan to operate on the girl next Thursday or Friday."

So, Wang Hong's future looks brighter. And then she received more good news:

"A headmaster, surnamed He, of a local elementary school has promised to accept me to go to school for free when I recover from the operation," Wang said, smiling.

(China Daily June 4, 2005)