More applications came in in three days than in the entire month of January, when 2,500 people applied. Normally an average of about 75 people register per day, now that number was more than ten times higher.
Actually suitable
Matchis announced on Sunday that the majority of the applicants could actually be suitable as a match.
A spokesperson states that 75 percent of new applicants are men. According to him, this means that Slegers’ story is very popular with men.
Former journalist Slegers, who has been media affairs manager at PSV since 2016, was struck by leukemia a few years ago. Slegers himself had a stem cell transplant, which was also successful. On Thursday he announced that he is still not getting better. At the same time his thoughts go out to other people: “I am beyond help, but others are!Slegers tweeted.
247 donors matched
Matchis now has 395,000 known donors. In 2015 there were still 50,000. “We were then able to help 50 people, now we have 395,000 and 247 donors have been matched with a patient,” says a spokesperson for Matchis. “The more people are registered, the more people we can help.”
Today, spectators of the match between Feyenoord and PSV in De Kuip also showed their support for Slegers. In the 12th minute of the match between Feyenoord and PSV, the more than 47,000 fans present clapped for a minute. The PSV players wore special shirts on Sunday when they entered the field with the text ‘Sterkte, Thijs!’.
In the PSV supporters section, fans held up a cloth with the text ‘Thijs, unity makes power’.
