Since blood is diligently donated in police schools, the executive is launching a wide rollout of stem cell registrations in the security academy with the Austrian Red Cross. For people with leukemia, stem cell therapy is often the only chance for a cure. However, only individuals up to the age of 35 can register. Therefore, the nationwide police schools are ideal partners, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

In people who develop blood cancer, the healthy blood cells are displaced by the cancer cells. A stem cell donation offers the possibility to defeat the disease. However, these stem cells must come from biologically suitable donors. Therefore, there is now the project between the Red Cross and the Ministry of the Interior, which allows for a voluntary stem cell registration in police schools - where many people can be reached - in the context of the blood donation campaigns that have been taking place for many years.

Stem Cell Typing in Police: Oral Swab for Registration

To find suitable voluntary donors, it is necessary to conduct a "stem cell registration" using a cheek swab, and as broadly as possible, because the probability of finding a suitable donor is only 1 in 500,000. This means: Reduced to Austria alone, there are statistically only 18 suitable donors for each affected person. To find these 18, it is necessary to carry out as many registrations as possible. Other countries also benefit from the registered donors to increase the chances of a match. The Red Cross has already registered over 75,000 potential stem cell donors - over 500 of them through the first three registration campaigns of the ministry alone.

"Helping people is deeply embedded in the DNA of the police. For many years, we have been fighting sudden cardiac death very successfully in Vienna with police defibrillators. Through stem cell donation, police officers can now also become lifesavers for leukemia," said Vienna's Police President Gerhard Pürstl. "The key to the chance of healing lies in a database of donors as extensive as possible," said Ursula Kreil, transfusion medicine specialist and deputy medical director of the blood donation center for Vienna, Lower Austria, and Burgenland.

(APA/Red)

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