Cyprus resident becomes stem cell donor for two-year-old boy from Germany

Cyprus resident Irini Ioannou donated haematopoietic stem cells for a two-year-old boy from Germany. The transplant was sent to the recipient on the same day it was collected — the story coincided with World Marrow Donor Day, observed on the third Saturday of September.

Ioannou joined the voluntary donor registry in October 2017: she donated a sample while still a student, during a campaign organised by the Karaiskakio Foundation. Years later, the foundation called to tell her that she was a complete match for a patient in need of a transplant.

Before the collection, the donor underwent a series of medical examinations. For five consecutive days, a nurse came to her home twice a day to administer injections of a growth factor to increase the number of stem cells in her blood. The collection was carried out in the haematology department of Nicosia Hospital: because Ioannou had thin veins, a central venous catheter was inserted, while a machine collected the stem cells and returned the remaining blood components to her bloodstream.

“As soon as the phone rang and I saw that it was Karaiskakio calling, I told my mother even before answering that I would be a match,” Ioannou said. According to her, she had no hesitation about whether to go ahead.

The Karaiskakio Foundation operates as a reference laboratory in the fields of haematology, immunology and molecular pathology and maintains Cyprus’s voluntary bone marrow donor registry, which is part of the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA). The registry includes more than 250,000 people, and the foundation has sent around 1,000 transplants to 36 countries in total.

“In the end, the fear fades — you simply hope that everything will go well,” Ioannou says, addressing those who are considering whether to join the registry.