More than 800 doctors and nurses from Zhongshan Hospital registered with the Shanghai Stem Cell Donor Bank yesterday, to help solve the shortage of samples at the bank and encourage more people to register and donate stem cells.

Doctors said local residents can also donate blood, as the requirements for giving blood are less strict than those for donating stem cells.

Stem cell transplants are the most effective method for treating leukemia currently. About 4 million people in China have leukemia and another 40,000 people are diagnosed with the disease every year.

"As medical professionals, we want to devote our efforts to helping leukemia patients and telling the public that such donations are harmless through this registration event," said Dr. Lai Hao, a surgeon in Zhongshan's cardiac department.

To date, stem cell banks across the country have only collected 260,000 donor samples, compared with about 4.7 million in the United States and 3.7 million in Europe.

According to medical experts, a healthy person can regenerate donated stem cells within one to two weeks. In addition to stem cells, local medical facilities say they also suffer from frequent shortages of blood.

The Zhongshan Hospital surgeon said his department deals with about one major blood shortage every six months and sometime has to delay elective surgeries.

"Donating blood is also a good way to help other people," he said.

(Shanghai Daily October 19, 2005)