Blood disease sufferers will benefit from a new branch of the China Bone Marrow Data Bank to be established in Shaanxi this year, in northwest China, with a total investment of 500,000 yuan (US$60,240).

An official with the Red Cross Society of Shaanxi Province said that all equipment needed by the Shaanxi branch had been purchased, and interior decoration and network construction were under way.

The Shaanxi data bank is expected to get one million yuan (more than US$120,000) annually from the Financial Bureau of Shaanxi Province, to store the information on up to 2,000 bone marrow donors.

The national bone marrow data bank, the China Haematogenous Stem-cells Subscribers Information Bank, is the only state-level system for the donation and transplant of haematogenous stem-cells in China.

Statistics show that China has more than four million blood-disease patients waiting for transplants of haematogenous stem-cells each year. Of those, the number of leukemia sufferers grows by 40,000 annually.

China needs more than 100,000 of marrow donors to meet clinical demand. At present, there are just 30,000.

Sources said that so far, more than 500 people have expressed their willingness to the Red Cross Society of Shaanxi Province to donate marrow. 　

(Xinhua News Agency April 10, 2002)