Every 12 minutes, someone in Germany receives the devastating diagnosis of blood cancer. For many, a transplant of healthy stem cells is the only chance of beating blood cancer and living on. The more people who register as stem cell donors, the more blood cancer patients can be given a second chance at life.
In the fight against blood cancer, Deutsche Telekom has been a reliable partner of the German Bone Marrow Donor Center (DKMS) for over 30 years. DKMS is an international non-profit organization whose goal is to give as many blood cancer patients worldwide as possible a second chance at life.
Voluntary work for the DKMS
To date, more than 18,000 Telekom employees have been typed and have been included in the global bone marrow donor registry. In an emergency, they can save lives by donating stem cells. Telekom covers the costs of typing for its employees and also offers the necessary typing campaigns at regular intervals at the work locations. Numerous employees, from trainees to managers, support DKMS on a voluntary basis with donation and typing campaigns at their locations.
For many blood cancer patients, a stem cell or bone marrow donation is the only chance of survival. However, for a transplant to be successful, the tissue characteristics of the donor and patient must first match almost completely and, according to DKMS experience, around one in a hundred registered potential stem cell donors will donate a stem cell. Without basic typing, however, it is impossible to determine whether the tissue characteristics of the donor and recipient match. And so it is always a declared goal of DKMS to make people aware of how valuable typing can be for the lives of others if a suitable bone marrow donation is needed at some point.
Accordingly, Deutsche Telekom is committed to doing this with the cleara also to make its own employees aware of this important issue and to support DKMS as a long-term and reliable partner.
Strong partnership
The German Bone Marrow Donor Center was founded in 1991 and is currently the world's largest stem cell donor center with over 12 million registered donors (as of December 2023). To date, the organization has arranged more than 110,000 stem cell donations, including over 200 by Deutsche Telekom employees. In addition to Germany, DKMS is active in the USA, Poland, UK, Chile, India and South Africa. The first company typing took place at Deutsche Telekom back in 1994. In 2024, Telekom celebrates the 30th anniversary of its cooperation with DKMS.