Trend of Cord Blood Donation by Minority Races

Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye asked the Minister for Health (a) what is the trend of cord blood donation by minority races over the past five years; and (b) whether there are any plans by the Ministry to encourage minority races to donate cord blood.

Currently, there are four licensed cord blood banks in Singapore. Three are private cord blood banks while the Singapore Cord Blood Bank (SCBB) was set up by our public healthcare cluster SingHealth.

Over the past five years, SCBB received about 4,000 donations annually. Sixty-nine percent of the cord blood donations were made by Chinese, 9% by Malays, 9% by Indians and the rest were by donors of other ethnicity.

SCBB has programmes to encourage and raise awareness on cord blood donations, including those tailored for the minority communities. For the Malay community, for example, SCBB has worked with the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore to issue a set of commonly asked question on cord blood donations by Muslims to address the concerns of the community. SCBB will continue to work with our stakeholders and partners to reach out to the various communities.