A donor recruitment event held for Joey Ziadi, in Abington Park on Sunday, was a huge success, becoming their largest patient appeal event for the UK in the past two years.
More than 550 people turned up to give a spit sample and join our lifesaving register on the day. The success of this event is the latest in a series of remarkable statistics showing how the people of Northampton have rallied behind the appeal to find a lifesaving bone marrow match for a ‘1 in 9 million’ local baby boy.
Kaisha Morris, Joey’s mother, says, “We’ve been absolutely blown away by the number of people that came down to Abington Park and signed up to the Anthony Nolan register for Joey. I want to thank all the amazing people of Northampton who supported us and every single person who signed up. I wish I could hug all of them!
“It’s amazing how many selfless potential lifesavers we have in Northampton. It was way beyond our expectations, I still can’t believe it.”
Little Joey's story
Nine month old Joey Ziadi was diagnosed with an extremely rare blood disorder Diamond Blackfan Anaemia in February this year. Joey’s family have been tirelessly campaigning to recruit more potential donors to the register after being told that his best hope of a cure is a bone marrow transplant from a stranger.
The 'Joey effect'
As a result of local exposure, the Anthony Nolan website experienced a huge spike in visitors and registrations from the Northampton area which has been labelled the ‘Joey effect’.
The website experienced a 1,000% increase in donor applications and a 1,411% increase in webpage views from Northampton in the last couple of weeks, compared to the same time last year [1]. Northampton was also the second biggest referring location to the website in the UK, only behind London.
How you can help
The family, with the help of Anthony Nolan, are hoping to plan further recruitment and fundraising events in the future. For the meantime, they are calling on more people aged 16–30 to sign up to the register.
Sarah Roulstone, Regional Register Development Manager at Anthony Nolan, says, “It’s amazing to see the ‘Joey effect’ in the flesh. The local community have really got behind the family it was very touching to see.
“We still urgently need more people to come forward, especially young men as they are the most likely to be chosen to donate but are under-represented on the register. What many people don’t realise is how easy it is to join the bone marrow register – it simply involves filling in a form and providing a saliva sample.”
People aged 16–30 can join the register online here. You can also follow Joey’s progression on their GIJoeyUK Facebook page and @JoeyZiadi Twitter page.