US woman Linda Wells returned to Beijing yesterday after a visit to
central China's
Hunan
Province, which could offer a glimmer of hope for her dying
daughter Kailee.
Wells, whose critically ill adopted daughter will die unless she
receives a bone marrow transplant -- hopefully from a member of her
biological family -- said she is waiting anxiously to see if a man,
that many believed to be Kailee's biological father, could really
be the little girl's savior.
Wells, who arrived in Beijing in mid-February, traveled to Hunan
Province, Kailee's birthplace, where she gathered two blood samples
from a shoemaker -- surnamed Ma, who local police and media believe
is Kailee's biological father.
Wells, a 50-year-old US lawyer, said Kailee, also known by her
Chinese name of Changban, was adopted from Changde in Hunan after
being abandoned as a baby in 1997.
The six-year-old is suffering from a fatal disease -- aplastic
anemia.
Doctors said that a bone-marrow transplant -- ideally from a
sibling or parent -- is her only hope of survival.
Wells said she had delivered the blood samples to the Red Cross
Society of China (RCSC)
yesterday.
Hong Junling, deputy director of Hematopoietic Stem Cell Donor
Program Administration Center of the RCSC, said his agency was
conducting DNA tests yesterday.
The results, whether Ma is the biological father and if his bone
marrow matches, will not be available until tonight, he said.
"I
could see Mr. Ma is an honest man... but I think the chances are
probably not too strong, just because he was not with the woman
when she left the baby, so he couldn't know where the woman left
the girl or what day she left her," said Wells.
With this doubt in her mind, Wells said she will first fly to
Shanghai tonight and then Hong Kong and possibly to Taiwan to
continue her mission to save her daughter.
"If Mr. Ma is not the father, I will be disappointed. But there is
still hope that the biological family will come forward and the
press are still looking for other clues," she said.
If
Ma is the biological father, Wells said she will fly back to
Hunan.
She said she hoped her drive will enhance people's awareness of the
bone marrow registry -- not just for Kailee, but for many other
people who need bone marrow transplants to survive.
Hong said a huge number of Chinese people have pledged to help
Kailee after her story was reported in the Chinese media.
Apart from a flurry of blood donors, at least 20 Chinese doctors,
and patients who have recovered from a similar diseases as Kailee's
have written to the Red Cross offering their support to her, Hong
said.
(China Daily February 25, 2003)