Donation offers hope for toddler

BEIJING - Thanks to a public donation, a toddler suffering from a severe type of anemia will undergo cell-transplant surgery next week in Beijing.

Xie Hongze, a 3-year-old boy from South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, will move on Thursday to a special isolation room at the Beijing-based PLA Navy General Hospital. His 32-year-old mother will be the donor in the surgery, which will transplant stem cells that make blood.

Thousands of donors, after learning of the boy's condition and that his mother worked as a volunteer helping poor students, took part in an online campaign to raise money for his surgery. They eventually gave more than 470,000 yuan ($73,560).