Become a bone marrow donor in American Samoa

NMDP signs up people who live in American Samoa. It is run by National Marrow Donor Program, a nonprofit organization.

Military members, their families, reservists and DoD civilian staff in American Samoa can join through the Defense Department’s Salute to Life program with a mailed kit; on Oct 16, 2026, its list of walk-in registration sites had none in American Samoa. [5, 6]

NMDP’s rule for U.S. territories covers American Samoa, whose people are U.S. nationals. [2, 8]

In May 2006, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported that the Hawaii Bone Marrow Donor Registry, set up at St. Francis Medical Center in 1989 to recruit for the National Marrow Donor Program, had more than 66,000 registered donors across Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa and needed more from diverse backgrounds. [12]

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported in March 2004 that the Hawaii registry’s search coordinator tracked down possible donors on preliminary search lists from Hawaii, American Samoa and Guam, and that the registry served patients worldwide, not only local ones. [13]

Samoa News reported in January 2018 that a woman from American Samoa with leukemia had come home in 2011 to hold a bone marrow registry drive for all patients in need, and cited the American Samoa Community Cancer Coalition as saying Polynesian patients have a harder time finding a match. [16]