appeal, Completed Appeals

Vital medication for Dzhansu

Dzhansu Alakberova

Date of birth: 08 December 2011

Residence: Smolensk, Russia

Diagnosis: Thalassaemia

Seven-year-old Dzhansu Alakberova is suffering from thalassaemia, a hereditary illness that interferes with haemoglobin synthesis. For the last two years, she has been forced to come to hospital every two or three weeks to receive electrolyte transfusions. They’re the only thing that can make her feel healthy.

Fighting for her life

But having to visit the hospital all the time gets in the way of Dzhansu having a normal childhood. It stops her from being able to go to kindergarten and make friends the way all the other children do. Right now, Dzhansu’s best friends are the doctors and nurses at the Dmitry Rogachev Centre for Paediatric Haematology. But Dzhansu doesn’t want to be a doctor the way she once did. Now she wants to be a hairdresser. Maybe that’s just how hard she found it to cope with the loss of her beautiful hair.

You can’t live a normal life while having to depend on constant blood transfusions. Dzhansu flat-out won’t be able to go to school. That’s why the doctors have decided to conduct a bone marrow transplant from an unrelated donor, swapping out all of her sick bone marrow for the healthy kind.

Help us saving Dzhansu

Dzhansu is getting ready for the transplant even as we speak, but every transplant comes with the risk of complications. There’s a significant risk that Dzhansu will develop hepatic veno-occlusive disease. The best way to reduce this risk is with Defitelio, a medicine proven to help in this kind of therapy. But Defitelio is very expensive, and Dzhansu will need £15,000 to pay for her course. There’s no way an ordinary family from Smolensk could afford something like that.

We’re praying that now, on the eve of International Children’s Day, which is on the 1st of June, Dzhansu will receive a miracle: that our donors will come together to help her, and Dzhansu will receive the money she needs to continue her treatment.

The course of vital medication for Dzhansu will cost £15,000, and her family needs our support. Let’s help little Dzhansu together. Thank you!