Sankalp News

14th November is celebrated as the children's day. We at Sankalp also mark it as the day when the Thalassemia Day Care Centre at Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health was formally inaugurated. One year has passed since Sankalp India Foundation took a leap ahead and included management of thalassemia as one of the activities that the organisation was taking up. It has been an eventful journey. However, we must admit, this is no time for celebration.

7 November, Bangalore: Cure2Children, Italy and Sankalp India Foundation have come together to provide hope for the children suffering from thalassemia by offering HLA typing for the eligible families 'free of charge'. The HLA typing will enable the identification of the families who can opt for a permanent cure from thalassemia. 7th November, 2012 is going to be very special at the Thalassemia Day Care Centre. This is the day when 15 families who have one child suffering from thalassemia are being offered free HLA typing.

For many reasons, the district of Gulbarga has very poor performance when it comes to Voluntary Blood Donation. On a deep down analysis made by Sankalp's Rakta Kranthi it was realized that not only are awareness levels lower than any other part of the state, but also the very attitude of people who can make a difference is slowly but surely sounding the death knell for voluntary blood donation here. An attempt was made.

An exclusive portal for people who have the Bombay Blood Group was launched on October 2nd 2012. This is the first of it’s kind platform which will bring together all the individuals with this rare blood group and seek to address their concerns on blood requirement.

We already have heard and experienced situations where rare blood groups like Bombay blood group have been a mystery to people in blood banking. Now, there are 2 more to add to this list: Langereis blood type and Junior blood type. Both positive and negative.

The molecular basis of these two blood types had remained a mystery until recently when scientists at University of Vermont where able to decode them and identified the two molecules as specialized transport proteins named ABCB6 and ABCG2. The last new blood group proteins to be discovered were nearly a decade ago.