Cancer is the third leading cause of death in Sri Lanka BMT is a cost effective treatment for Thalassemia (most common life- threatening disease in South East Asia) with a 90% success rate The cost for BMT in India is over 4.5 million rupees (AU$ 40,000) Many patients perish without treatment due to lack of affordability

Initiated by a group of Canberra & Sydney based Sri Lankans in 2013 St. Vincent’s Hospital Haematology unit in Sydney has offered to mentor the project. Sixteen medical staff have been identified to receive training (up to 4 months) at St Vincent’s Hospital starting from early Australian Government has awarded 4 scholarships. It is critical that all 16 receive training concurrently for success of the program. Our task is to sponsor the remaining 12.

Feb-June 2015BMT Training Program in Sydney Mid 2015Open BMT Unit and the Stem Cell Processing facility Late 2015First Bone Marrow Transplant (supervised by St. Vincent’s) 2016Establish Bone Marrow Donor Registry 2016 / 2017First Sibling & Non-related Transplants

New BMTU facility at NCI -Visit to Sri Lanka by Assoc. Prof. John Moore and Prof David Ma from St. Vincent’s – (April 2014) Preparation for the training in Sydney conducted by Projects-Abroad (August 2014 –January 2015)

Launch 22 nd Sep at APSC Guests: A/g Aus. Public Service Commissioner, SL High Commissioner, Prof. David Ma, Assoc. Prof. John Moore, Dr. Ruwan Walpola, Adj. Assoc. Prof. Stephen Muller

Deshika (18), suffered from Ewings Sarcoma. Helped with a PET scan before her surgery. Her pelvic bone was removed and transported to the cancer hospital to irradiate all tumour tissues and re- implanted back to her (Known as Extracorporeal Radiation Therapy). Manjula (36), a mother of 2 young kids and a school teacher, suffering from Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. Still l ooking for a matching unrelated donor to have the BMT. She travels to India every 3 months for check- ups. Baby Levmitha (20 months) suffered from Leukaemia. Was referred for BMT in India when he was 5 months old but could not proceed because of the financial difficulties. Our Motivation

For coming along to help make the BMT program a reality by sponsoring the 12 medical staff from NCI and NBTS Sri Lanka Bank Details: (St George’s Bank) BSB: Account Number: Account Name: Australia Sri Lanka Association (ASLA) Inc. Reference: BMT+ Name, Initial