More than 28 million kuna were collected in mass fundraisers in March for the treatment of Mila Rončević, a two-year-old girl suffering from a rare type of leukaemia. In early April, she and her parents travelled to Philadelphia to start the treatment. And now, her father Marin Rončević reported that the treatment was progressing exceptionally well, reports 24sata.hr on April 23, 2019.
“The MRD, the percentage of leukaemic blasts in the bone marrow, is less than 0.1%. What is important is that no one expected such a response to treatment. Everything under 10% would be good, below 5% great, and this is incredible. This is the power of prayer and love of hundreds of thousands of people who support the best children’s doctors,” said Marin.
Before starting treatment, the MRD was at 88 per cent, then 50 per cent, and now only 0.1 per cent. Mila’s condition is getting better and what follows is a bone marrow transplantation. “This is better than any prognosis, but we still have a long way to go. Transplantation is dangerous, and the illness can find a new route in the next five years, but this is beyond all expectations and is a great result after only half the initial cycle. Mila looks great, and her condition is good,” said the father.
On Tuesday, the girl turned two. Surrounded by her mother, father and the medical team, Mila has been in the children’s hospital in Philadelphia since April 3. The payments and donations in the humanitarian drive for Mila far exceeded the amount needed for treatment costs. More than 37 million kuna was collected.
“As I have already said, we do not have time or knowledge to run such a fund, but we will not leave this money to the politicians. Politicians can only give, as I have already proposed, five lipa per a litre of gasoline sold to pay into the fund for sick children. But politicians, just like us, must not manage this money. There should be a team of medical and other experts who are in a position to assess medical records and the needs of individuals in the shortest possible time,” he wrote.
Marin Rončević has also written that state institutions do not have, do not know or do not want to provide answers to existing problems, although solutions do exist and are available. “There is another girl who is playing the lottery of life, waiting whether a drug is going to be approved in time. The price of the drug is unknown to almost anyone. An additional paradox is that the same drug was approved for another girl,” Rončević noted.
Translated from 24sata.hr (reported by Anita Anić-Božić, Andro Bernardić).
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