Chinese soldier bleeds a little for South Korean

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A Chinese soldier has donated 200 milliliters of blood with a high density of hematopoietic stem cells to a leukemia patient in South Korea.

Xu Shiyu, 26, a soldier from the armored regiment of Jinan Military Area Command, had his blood extracted by a blood cell separation machine on Wednesday and Thursday at the Air Force General Hospital of the PLA in Beijing.

The blood will be transfused into a leukemia patient in South Korea. Staff members from the Korean Marrow Donor Program came to Beijing on Thursday morning to take the donated blood back to Seoul.

In October 2007, when Xu was a college student in East China's Shandong province, he had his blood sample taken and recorded at the provincial marrow donor center to become a candidate donor for stem cells.

He received a phone call from the China Marrow Donor Program in April, when a South Korean patient whose blood sample matched his sought help from China. He decided to donate after hearing about the case.

"Donating stem cells is not a big issue for me, but it could help the South Korean patient get rid of the disease and regain health," he said after going through the procedure on Thursday.

Xu said that he did not feel much physical discomfort during the blood extraction process.

Zhu Peiyu, a doctor at the hospital, said donating stem cells will not harm the donor's health.

"Stem cell donors don't have to extract their marrow, and what they donate is 55 to 200 milliliters of blood, which is no more than half of the amount of a common blood donation," she said.

Christopher Magoon, from Ohio of the United States, who donated his stem cells to a woman in his hometown in December 2010, went to the hospital with staff members from the China Marrow Donor Program to visit Xu.

"Helping others is great, especially helping people internationally like what Mr Xu is doing," he said.

Xu said his decision won the support of his wife.

It was Xu's birthday on Thursday, and he received flowers from the China Marrow Donor Program and a birthday cake from nurses at the hospital.

Choi You-jin, an assistant manager of the Korean Marrow Donor Program, said that she appreciated the soldier's selfless actions.

The South Korean recipient is a 25-year-old man who is in critical condition. He needs to receive the donation surgery as soon as possible, Choi said.

About 20 overseas patients a year have received stem cell donations from Chinese donors in recent years, said Hong Junling, director of the China Marrow Donor Program.

A total of 1.5 million people in China have become candidate donors for stem cells by having their blood samples collected in the program, Hong said.

About the broadcaster:

Nelly Min is an editor at China Daily with more than 10 years of experience as a newspaper editor and photographer. She has worked at major newspapers in the U.S., including the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit Free Press. She is also fluent in Korean.