Javaid Iqbal
For 2021, the World Blood Donor Day slogan will be “Give blood and keep the world beating”. The message highlights the essential contribution blood donors make to keeping the world pulsating by saving lives and improving others' health.
World Blood Donor Day is celebrated every year by the people in many countries around the world on 14th of June. World Blood Donor Day is celebrated every year on the day of birthday anniversary of Karl Landsteiner on 14th of June in 1868. This event celebration was first started in the year 2004 aiming to raise the public awareness about the need for safe blood donation (including its products) voluntarily and unpaid by the healthy person. Blood donors are the key role player at this day as they donate life-saving gifts of blood to the needed person.
It was first initiated and established to be celebrated annually on 14th of June by “the World Health Organization, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies” in the year 2004. World Blood Donor Day was officially established by the WHO with its 192 Member States in the month of May in 2005 at the 58th World Health Assembly in order to motivate all the countries worldwide to thank the blood donors for their precious step, promote voluntary, safe and unpaid blood donations to ensure the sufficient blood supplies.
World Blood Donor Day celebration brings a precious opportunity to all donors for celebrating it on national and global level as well as to commemorate the birthday anniversary of the Karl Landsteiner (a great scientist who won the Nobel Prize for his great discovery of the ABO blood group system).
Why World Blood Donor Day is Celebrated
The best way to celebrate World Blood Donor Day is to go out and give blood! There’s a powerful need for blood of all types, and there’s rarely enough of it to go around. Just a single contribution now and then will help save lives, so get on out there and give!
Finding a clinic in your local area is surprisingly easy. Usually, teams of medics will set up donor rooms where you can go to give blood with other volunteers. Before you donate, you’ll need to take a quiz to see if you qualify. After that, a nurse will test your blood to ensure that it is safe to withdraw a large quantity. Then, they will place a needle in your arm and remove around a pint.
If you can’t give blood for whatever reason, that doesn’t prevent you from taking part in World Blood Donor Day. There are still plenty of things that you can do. You could, for instance, mark the occasion by updating your social media profile pictures to celebrate the event. Symbols and images can have a massive impact.
If you live in an area that requires more blood, you could also go out canvassing on behalf of your local blood donation group. Often something as simple as posting leaflets through the doors of those in the local community can encourage people to come forward.
World Blood Donor Day is, therefore, one of the most important public health events in the calendar. It affirms the hard work of those early blood transfusion pioneers and encourages people to get out and give!
Some of the objectives of the World Blood Donor Day celebration are mentioned below:
- To provide a platform to thank the people who voluntarily donate blood often.
- To encourage individuals who do not donate blood to donate blood regularly.
- To support effect, national blood donor programs and eliminate the dependence on family and friends.
- To discourage paid blood donation, mostly when there is an acute shortage of blood when necessary.
- Educate people about the importance of safe blood transfusions and how blood products are such life saviours.
- To help blood banks to manage sufficient blood supply
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