"Love messengers" from Taiwan and the mainland carry a bone marrow sample from Taiwan to Shanghai Children's Medical Center on Wednesday, March 28, 2007. The bone marrow will be transplanted to Qiu Jianwen, a four-year-old boy from the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou. It is reported that the boy suffers from Mediterranean anemia and has a peculiar hobby of eating lime plastered on walls due to the disease. A bone marrow match was found for him through a Taiwan bone marrow registry this March. [Photo: cnsphoto]

A four-year-old boy from Suzhou underwent five hours of medical treatment for Mediterranean anemia after undergoing an intravenous injection of bone marrow delivered from Taiwan to Shanghai on Wednesday evening.

Shanghai-based Youth Daily reported Qiu Jianwen established the hobby of eating lime plastered on walls when he was only about one years old. The father recalled one evening when he found Qiu Jianwen's fingers bleeding from digging walls with a full mouth of lime powder.

Qiu Jianwen is a skinny child, but has a drum-like abdomen. Doctors diagnosed that the boy lacked certain elements in his body due to Mediterranean anemia, which depends on eating lime to form supplements. He possesses only four grams of hemoglobin.

Qiu Jianwen's physician-in-charge at Shanghai Children's Medical Center, Dr. Chen Jing, told the newspaper that Mediterranean anemia indicates a deficiency of genes responsible for hemachrome production. Without proper medical treatment, the boy would not live past the age of five.

The successful bone marrow match from Taiwan is not the only factor to save the ill-fated boy, since only 60 to 70 percent of such transplant surgeries can lead to a final success. The results of the transplant will be known in a month.

Taiwan singer Tarcy Su was one of the "love messengers" who sent the bone marrow from Taiwan to Shanghai on Wednesday, March 28, 2007. [Photo: cnsphoto]

Editor: Yan