This year, World Blood Donor Day will once again be celebrated around the world June 14. The event serves to thank voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood and also to raise awareness of the need for regular blood donations to ensure that all individuals and communities have access to affordable and timely supplies of safe and quality-assured blood and blood products.
Transfusion of blood and blood products save millions of lives every year. Blood and blood products are essential components in the proper management of women suffering from bleeding associated with pregnancy and childbirth; children suffering from severe anaemia due to malaria and malnutrition; patients with blood and bone marrow disorders, inherited disorders of haemoglobin and immune deficiency conditions; victims of trauma, emergencies, disasters and accidents; as well as patients undergoing advanced medical and surgical procedures.
Although the need for blood and blood products is universal, there is a marked difference in the level of access to safe blood and blood products across and within countries. In many countries, blood services face the additional challenge of making sufficient blood and blood products available, while also ensuring its quality and safety.
In May 2005, during the 58th World Health Assembly, ministers of health from across the world made a unanimous declaration of commitment and support towards voluntary blood donation. Through a resolution, they designated World Blood Donor Day as an annual event to be held each year June 14.
In 2009, experts in transfusion medicine, policy-makers and nongovernmental representatives from 40 countries formulated the Melbourne Declaration, which set up a goal for all countries to obtain all their blood supplies from voluntary unpaid donors by 2020.
Focus of this year’s campaign:
The theme of this year’s campaign is blood donation and universal access to safe blood transfusion, as a component of achieving universal health coverage. The slogan ‘Safe blood for all’ aims to raise awareness of the universal need for safe blood in the delivery of healthcare and the crucial role that voluntary donations play in achieving the goal of universal health coverage.
The host country for World Blood Donor Day 2019 is Rwanda. The global event will be held in Kigali, Rwanda June 14.
- As per the World Health Organisation (WHO) norms, ideally, one per cent of the total population should regularly donate blood to meet the requirements, which is anywhere between one and three per cent of country’s population that would require blood in a year
- About 65% of India’s population is young and if this section donates blood regularly, chances of the country facing blood shortage will be remote
