Doctors at the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital say a five-year-old girl with severe thalassaemia will undergo stem cell transplant surgery in October using umbilical cord blood transferred from the mainland.

The procedure can cure the condition and abolish the need for the patient to have a blood donation every four to five months.

During a media briefing on Thursday, the hospital said the blood came from the girl’s younger brother and was moved to Hong Kong last week from a cell bank in Guangzhou.

Dr Cheuk Ka-leung, a consultant at the hospital’s department of paediatrics and adolescent medicine, said checks have been conducted to make sure the blood is a match for the girl and safe to use.

“We have proceeded to type the brother’s white blood cells to see whether this brother’s white blood cells match with the patient and we found that it really matches,” he said.

“We initiated a lot of communications. We make sure that the quality and the results of testing of the cord blood match our standard and then we proceed to arrange for all the procedures, all the paperwork to get the permit to transport the cord blood to Hong Kong.”

Cheuk added that the hospital usually searches for cord blood that matches the patient on a local database organised by the Hong Kong Red Cross, but decided to accept a cross-border donation for the first time as sibling donors are always preferred.

The hospital said there are currently 10 patients on its waiting list for stem cell surgery.