Most patients requiring Unrelated Bone Marrow Transplantation – UBMT (trasplante de médula ósea no emparentado – TMO-NE) through Peru’s Social Health Insurance Institute (Seguro Social de Salud – EsSalud) are being treated for leukaemia, and the majority of these are children.

UBMT proceeds in two stages. The first involves analyzing the patient’s Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA) so that the search for donors can begin. Until December 2015, patients travelled abroad, and it took two and a half months for a medical committee to decide whether they were fit for this. The average cost per trip was 10,000 US dollars (USD). (This method was termed first-generation sampling.)

Based on the experience of the Intangible Solidarity Fund for Health (Fondo Intangible Solidario de Salud – FISSAL) of the Peruvian Ministry of Health (Ministerio de Salud de Perú – MINSA), blood samples began to be sent abroad in December 2015 (referred to as second-generation sampling). This put an end to pressure being exerted for UBMT to go ahead, saved USD 8,500 per patient in travel costs and removed the risks associated with travel for leukaemia patients. This freed up budgetary resources to treat more children with leukaemia and there is no longer any need for pressure to be exerted to speed the process up because all patients enjoy equal treatment.