Do something amazing…
Give someone a second chance at life

ACLT is an independent charity based in the UK which strives to provide a life line to those suffering from blood related cancers such as leukaemia and other life-threatening disorders. ACLT work close to 365 days a year to help that vision become a reality.

ACLT work on a transparent model that aims to raise awareness on patients in desperate need, encourage individuals from all backgrounds to give the gift of life and ultimately, match potential donors with patients waiting for an unrelated stem cell (bone marrow), blood or organ matched donor.

Since 1996, ACLT has found life-saving matches for over 160+ blood cancer patients in need of a stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor. ACLT have also registered over 160,000 people of all races to the UK Stem Cell Register, registered thousands of blood donors onto the Blood Donor Register and added over 5,000 individuals onto the Organ Donor Register through hosting registrations drives within the UK.

ACLT use the power of their brand to raise awareness on the issues they care about most – educating the BAME community on the importance of donation (across all three areas), and that no one is exempt from potential illnesses where a transplant would be required to save a life.

“ACLT is a charity committed to helping provide hope to patients living with blood cancer and other illnesses where a matched donor (stem cell, blood or organ) is required to save a life. Our work is driven by a belief that no one should die waiting for a donor to become available.

Through our work, we improve odds of finding matches by registering potential donors on mass from all ethnicities, with a focus on donors from the African and Caribbean communities. This is due to an extreme shortage of African and Caribbean potential donors, signed to all three donor registries.

ACLT also provide support and advice to patients and their families, from diagnosis, throughout treatment, recovery and sadly (in some cases), while supporting the patient and family during ‘end of life,’ – where treatments have not been successful.”

Why join the registers?

Ethnic origin is important when matching donors and patients. The ‘markers’ that are tested when matching a suitable donor are genetically inherited and often unique to a particular race. A patient in need of a transplant is more likely to discover a suitable donor amongst groups of people who share a similar genetic history to them. In practice, this means that an African/Caribbean patient, for example, has the greatest opportunity of finding a donor within his or her own ethnic community.

Stem Cell

Every 20 minutes someone in the UK finds out they have blood cancer
Around 2,000 people in the UK need a stem cell (bone marrow) transplant each year. This is usually their last chance of survival.
Currently, 80% of African/Caribbean people who need a lifesaving stem cell transplant, will not finding a matching donor

Blood

It is estimated that 1,000 people in the UK have thalassaemia, and between 13,000 -15,000 people in the UK have sickle cell disease.
Despite the African/Caribbean communities representing 13% of the UK population, currently less than 1% of blood donors in the UK are from the African/Caribbean community

Organ

The proportion of BME individuals registered onto the NHS Organ Donor Register was 3.6% (White British individuals is 96.4%)
1 in 5 people who die waiting for a transplant are from a BME background. Even though 719 BME people had a transplant in 2016/17 (22% of all transplants), black and Asian people still wait significantly longer for a kidney transplant. In May 2020 the law was changed around organ donation in England to an opt out system. In other words we are all considered to be willing organ donors when we die unless we opt out or at the time of our death our next of kin refuse to donate our organ. This is why it is vitally important for us all to have these conversations with our family and next of kin.

Brand Partners

For many years ACLT have worked with a wide range of health and social organisations and continue to do so to help save the lives of thousands, by promoting and encouraging the recruitment of ethnic minority donors within stem cell, blood and organ donation. The most prominent alliance has been between Anthony Nolan, NHS Blood & Transplant and more recently DKMS.

THANK YOU

FOR PRESS ENQUIRES:

info@aclt.org

ACLT (African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust)
2a Garnet Road
Thornton Heath
Surrey
CR7 8RD

info@aclt.org
020 3727 7700

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