Marwah was presenting a paper on the concluding day of the National Conference of Indian Society of Blood Transfusion and Immuno-Haematology held at Pinjore today.

Blood substitutes _ red blood corpuscles and synthetic fluorocarbons, a chemical which can deliver oxygen to the tissues, _ have shown success during clinical trials, she said.

Dr Rajat Kumar from Army Hospital, Delhi said: "Thalessaemic and leukaemia patients can be cured by bone marrow transplant but the treatment has its limitations as there was always a shortage of matching bone marrow. Where donors are not the patient's sibling, only 20 to 30 per cent of the transplants are successful".

Dr Kumar said that blood cells taken from the placenta after delivery _ the cord blood _ can be given to the baby and help it to grow healthy bone marrow cells.

Meanwhile, Newsline spoke to people who have donated blood, some of them more than 100 times. They explained what motivated them:
"I was coming out of my college when an accident took place in front of my eyes. I immediately rushed the husband, wife and their child to the PGI and there I donated blood for the first time. It made me realise the importance of blood donation," recalls Parag Raj Sharma, who has donated blood 106 times.

Mahesh Trivedi (64) of Ahmedabad, who has donated blood 112 times says: "I have never faced any complication due to my regular blood donation and am healthy even at this age. Besides, I have motivated about 60,000 persons to donate blood".

S.S. Sethia (55), working with Agro Dutch Foods Ltd, Chandigarh, is another blood donor "centurion". He donated blood for the first time 18 years ago. D.K. Roy and A.N. Ghosh have donated blood 161 and 103 times, respectively.