PURPOSE: Every year on 14 June, countries around the world celebrate World Blood Donor Day. Blood donations are a lifeline in emergencies, disasters, humanitarian crises, and for people who need regular transfusions. And yet around the world, many communities do not have access to safe blood. Women and children are the most at risk. The event serves to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to thank voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood.
FORUM: “Give blood, give plasma, share life, share often.” World Blood Donor Day 2023. Every single blood donation is a precious lifesaving gift. Regular donation is key to building a safe and sustainable supply. The slogan for the campaign will focus on patients requiring life-long transfusion support and underline the role every single person can play, by giving the valuable gift of blood or plasma. It will also highlight the importance of giving blood or plasma regularly to create a safe and sustainable supply of blood and blood products that can be always available, all over the world, so that all patients in need can receive timely treatment. Follow the conversations with the hashtags: #GiveBlood, #GivePlasma, #14june, #WorldBloodDonorDay, #BloodDonations.
EVENTS: Algeria will host the World Blood Donor Day 2023 through the OMS Algeria and its National Blood Centre. The global event will be held in Alger on June 14th. Activities that would help promote the slogan of this year’s World Blood Donor Day may include donor appreciation ceremonies, social networking campaigns, special media broadcasts, social media posts featuring individual blood donors with the slogan, meetings and workshops, musical and artistic events to thank blood donors, and coloring the iconic monuments red or yellow. Countries are encouraged to disseminate to various media outlets stories of people, in particular transfusion-dependent patients, whose lives have been saved through blood or plasma donation as a way of motivating blood and plasma donation. In the Americas, on June 9th was held a Regional opening event to mark World Blood Donor Day in Honduras. For the June 15th 2023, the WHO/PAHO will held a webinar entiltled “Access to Safe Blood: different perspectives.”. Around the world, several events will be held in hospitals, clinics and in Blood centres.
STATEMENTS: Read the Message from the WHO Director General on World Blood Donor Day 2023; June 14th, Message from Dr Jarbas Barbosa, Director of PAHO on World Blood Donor Day 2023 and the Message of the WHO Regional Director for Africa on World Blood Donor Day 2023; June 14th.
PODCASTS: One of WHO strategies is to assist low- and middle-income countries in the world in improving the availability and quality of human plasma, including optimising the utilisation of the plasma recovered from whole blood donations, and increasing patients’ access to the life-saving plasma protein therapies. Listen to the audio-podcasts!
CAMPAIGN MATERIALS: The need for blood is universal, but access to safe blood and safe blood products for all those who need it is not. Shortages of safe blood are particularly acute in many countries; Under the slogan “Give blood, give plasma, share life, share often.” We intend to inform the public that the intention of Donating Blood is an Act of Solidarity. Get the campaign materials!
WHY WE CELEBRATE THE DAY?
We observe the World Blood Donor Day to draw attention to the roles that voluntary blood donations play in saving lives and enhancing solidarity within communities.
The specific objectives of this year’s campaign are to:
Celebrate and thank individuals who donate blood and encourage more people to become new donors;
Encourage people in good health to donate blood regularly, as often as is safe and possible, to transform the quality of life for transfusion dependent patients and help to build a secure blood supply in all countries in the world;
Highlight the critical roles of voluntary non-remunerated regular blood and plasma donations in achieving universal access to safe blood products for all populations; and
mobilize support at national, regional and global levels among governments and development partners to invest in, strengthen and sustain national blood programmes.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED!
Your involvement and support will help to ensure greater impact of the day by increasing recognition worldwide that giving blood is a life-saving act of solidarity and that services providing safe blood and blood products are an essential element of every health care system. A particular activity that countries in the world are encouraged to implement for this year’s campaign is to disseminate to various media outlets stories of people whose lives have been saved through blood donation as a way of motivating regular blood donors to continue giving blood, and to motivate people in good health who have never given blood to begin doing so.
Other activities that would help promote the slogan of this year’s World Blood Donor Day may include donor appreciation ceremonies, social networking campaigns, special media broadcasts, social media posts featuring individual blood donors with the slogan, meetings and workshops, musical and artistic events to thank blood donors and celebrate solidarity, and colouring iconic monuments red.
PARTNERSHIPS
The World Blood Donor Day is organized by WHO Regional Offices,
Other contributors National Blood Service (NBS); The Australian Red Cross Lifeblood; The Japanese Red Cross Society; The America’s Blood Centers; The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), The NZ Blood Service The Singapore Red Cross (SRC); The Centro Nacional de la Transfusión Sanguínea and the Gavrilov Blood Centre of Moscow's Department of Health and many others.