Countries all over the world celebrate World Blood Donor Day on June 14 every year. The main purpose of this event is to thank voluntary and 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. Blood products are an integral part of universal health coverage and a key component of effective health systems.

The theme for this year’s World Blood Donor Day is: “Safe Blood Saves Lives” with the slogan: “Give blood and make the world a healthier place”. The idea is to focus on the contribution an individual giver can make to improve health for others in the community. Blood donations are needed all over the world to ensure individuals and communities have access to safe and quality-assured blood and blood products in both normal and emergency situations. Through the campaign, more people all over the world are urged to be life-savers by volunteering to donate blood regularly.

It is also a call to action for governments, national health authorities and national blood transfusion services to provide adequate resources and put in place systems and infrastructures to increase the collection of blood from voluntary, non-remunerated blood donors; to provide quality donor care; to promote and implement appropriate clinical use of blood; and to set up systems for the surveillance on the whole chain of blood transfusion.

Blood is an important resource, both for planned treatments and urgent interventions. It can help patients suffering from life-threatening conditions to live longer and with a higher quality of life. Blood supports complex medical and surgical procedures. It is also vital for treating the wounded during emergencies of all kinds, including natural disasters, accidents, armed conflicts, etcetera. Blood equally has an essential, life-saving role in maternal and prenatal care.

A blood service that gives patients access to safe blood and blood products in sufficient quantity is a key component of an effective health system. Ensuring safe and sufficient blood supplies requires the development of a nationally coordinated blood transfusion service based on voluntary non-remunerated blood donations. However, in many countries, blood services face the challenge of making sufficient blood available, while also ensuring its quality and safety.

The need for safe blood is universal. Safe blood is critical both for treatments and urgent interventions. But access to safe blood is still a privilege of the few. Most low- and middle-income countries struggle to make safe blood available because donations are low and equipment to test blood is scarce.

An adequate supply of safe blood can only be assured through regular donations by voluntary unpaid blood donors. This is why the World Health Assembly, in 2005, designated a special day to thank blood donors and encourage more people to give blood freely.

International organizations, including the World Health Organization, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations and the International Society of Blood Transfusion, among others, continue to work in close collaboration to provide guidance and support to their membership in this endeavour.

Blood is the most vital liquid of physiology of the circulatory system which is the continuous system of tubes that pumps blood tissues and organs throughout the body. The pulmonary circulatory system circulates deoxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs via the pulmonary artery and returns it to the heart via the pulmonary vein.

Achieve safe and quality blood for all by donating safe blood today!

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