Oscar Saxelby-Lee: Stem cell matches found after school donor drive

Six people have benefitted from an event to help a five-year-old boy with leukaemia find a stem cell match.

More than 6,200 people gave blood and signed the stem cell register during the event at Oscar Saxelby-Lee's school in Worcester last year.

Blood cancer charity DKMS said six patients had found a match as a result.

Oscar, who has T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, was eventually found a stem cell donor in Germany, but it did not work.

He is currently having treatment in Singapore after his family fundraised more than £500,000 to pay for it.

Oscar's mum, Olivia Saxelby, said: "We've been in a bit of dark place for the last few weeks, because of lots of side effects from the treatment he's been tackling.

"It's caused him to lose his speech, his mobility, but he's pulling through."

Speaking about last year's event, she said his primary school put out a plea "and it was a record breaker" with more than 5,000 swabs taken over two days.

"We want to take the time out to appreciate our community, we'll never stop saying thank you," Mrs Saxelby said.

Sarah Gray, from DKMS, said the donor drive was the biggest one yet for the charity and the community had "really backed it".

She said the six matches from the more than 6,000 people who registered were "definitely lifesavers" and those now on the register may be contacted to help in the future.

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