A MUM is urging people to register to give bone marrow and blood after her daughter was diagnosed with a rare illness.

Karen Dellar’s daughter Hannah-Lee has a very rare auto-immune disease, which attacks bone marrow, and is now set to go on the national register in the hope of finding a near perfect transplant match.

If no match is found in the UK, the Stanway Primary schoolgirl, who has just five per cent of her bone marrow left, will be eligible to get a donor from anywhere in the world.

Since Hannah-Lee, eight, was diagnosed in July 2012, Miss Dellar, 48, of Old London Road, in Marks Tey, has been inundated with people wanting to be tested as a match, but doctors say it would cost too much to screen potential donors for a specific patient.

“The best way for people to help Hannah-Lee is to give blood because she will need transfusions, and to go on the national bone marrow register,” she said.

“There is no guarantee if they are a match they will be the one to help, but you never know.

“If me telling this story gets one more person on the register, then it’s been worth it.”

When a bone marrow match is found, Hannah-Lee will be treated at either Great Ormond Street, in London, or Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge.