Indians around the world desperately need your help, prayers, energy, social media posts, and most importantly, your saliva. Anish Aggarwal, walked into a hospital a few weeks ago with stomach pain and was quickly diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), a rare and fast progressing cancer. He has been in the hospital under quarantine since that day. Anish is married and is a devoted father of two sweet girls (3 and 8). The girls haven’t been able to see their father since his diagnosis out of fear of infection.
Anish is one of the most positive and generous people, his friends say. He is a tech entrepreneur and Cornell grad, and he has a deep effect on people wherever he goes. He puts you at ease, makes you laugh, and simply makes you feel better about yourself. He can walk into a room where he knows almost no one and he leaves as everyone’s friend.
Unfortunately, only 3% of the members of the bone marrow registry are South Asian. Given that matches are based on ethnicity, this is a massive problem for someone of South Asian descent, like Anish. While anyone can donate their bone marrow, donations through the general registry take anywhere from 6-8 weeks to see if they match with Anish. A disease like AML does not afford us that kind of time.
Check out the website for Anish: https://www.swab4anish.com/
Even if you are not a South Asian, there is a GoFundMe campaign for Anish that will be used for research and medical kits.
You can also go to gift of life and order yourself a swab kit: https://www.giftoflife.org/dc/swab4anish
