Brittle Bone Disease Aid Program
Ostegenesis imperfecta (OI) is also called the brittle bone disease. Children with such disease are known as china dolls. It is a rare disease caused by genetic mutation and heredity. Its incidence rate ranges between 1/10000 and 1/15000. There are about 100,000 people who have the disease in China. Patients with OI mostly experience dozens or even hundreds of bone fractures in their life. Even a sneeze or a hug might cause bone fracture. So many such china dolls had to lie in bed all day and lose the opportunity to go to school and live a normal life. They suffer pains that few normal people can understand. At present, the combination with two treatments of long term improvement of bone mineral density with medicine and corrective surgery can help these patients reduce the times of bone facture, restore walking function, and improve the standards of their life.
In order to help impoverished children with brittle bone disease in the region of Yantai to receive operation treatment, the Beijing China Dolls Care and Support Association launched the Yantai aid program for children with brittle bone disease. In 2011, the program became one of the recommended programs in the Dream Choir, a large public interest and charity television program produced by China Central Television. As a sole provider of the public interest and charity funds, the China Merchants Securities provided RMB 400,000 yuan to the program to provide operation and medicine treatment for 56 impoverished children with brittle bone disease.
