WORLD BLOOD DONOR DAY | Give Blood and Make The World a Healthier Place – 14 June 2020

The world needs enough safe blood for everyone in need.

✔ Every few seconds, someone, somewhere, needs blood.

✔ Transfusions of blood and blood products save millions of lives every year.

✔ Health is a human right; everyone in the world should have access to safe blood transfusions, when and where they need them.

✔ Regular blood donations are needed all over the world to ensure individuals and communities have access to safe and quality-assured blood and blood products.

✔ Everyone who can donate blood should consider making regular voluntary, unpaid donations, so that all countries have adequate blood supplies.

✔ Ensuring the safety and well-being of blood donors is critical; it helps build commitment to regular donations.

✔ Access to safe blood and blood product is essential for universal health coverage and a key component of effective health systems.

Blood and blood products are essential to care for:

✔ women with pregnancy and childbirth associated bleeding;

✔ children with severe anaemia due to malaria and malnutrition;

✔ patients with blood and bone marrow disorders, inherited disorders of haemoglobin and immune deficiency conditions;

✔ people with traumatic injuries in emergencies, disasters and accidents; and

✔ patients undergoing advanced medical and surgical procedures.

Governments, national health authorities and national blood services must work together to:

✔ ensure systems and infrastructure are in place to increase collection of blood from voluntary, regular unpaid donors;

✔ establish and strengthen quality assurance systems for blood and blood products to ensure safe blood and blood products;

✔ provide quality donor care;

✔ promote and implement appropriate clinical use of blood; and

✔ oversee the whole chain of blood transfusion.

Everyone

✔ Become a blood donor today and help make the world a healthier place.

✔ Commit to being a regular donor and give blood throughout the year.

✔ Encourage your friends and family to become regular blood donors.

✔ Volunteer with the blood service to reach out to members of your community, provide care to donors, and help manage blood donation sessions/drives.

✔ Find out your blood type and register as a blood donor.

✔ Participate in World Blood Donor Day with your social networks.

Ministries of Health

✔ Organize and participate in virtual activities to celebrate World Blood Donor Day, promoting voluntary unpaid blood donation to the public, across government and to other sectors.

✔ Acknowledge the important role of blood donors in achieving the goal of “safe blood saves lives”.

✔ Provide resources and infrastructure to facilitate voluntary blood donation.

✔ Support the development of nationally coordinated blood transfusion services that provide equitable access to safe and quality assured blood transfusions for the whole population.

✔ Put quality assurance systems in place for blood and blood products.

✔ Download and distribute WHO’s World Blood Donor Day materials to health centres.

✔ Speak to media about the importance of blood donation and the successes and challenges of your country in meeting national needs for blood.

 National blood transfusion services

✔ Disseminate information about the importance of giving blood.

✔ Distribute campaign materials that you can download from the World Blood Donor Day campaign web site.

✔ Organize a virtual World Blood Donor Day celebration. This could include:

⁃ inviting prominent politicians, celebrities and sporting heroes to make videos or communicate on the importance of giving blood;

⁃ producing and disseminating promotional materials through your web site and social channels;

⁃ setting up virtual visits of blood centres and inviting the public to learn about blood donation and transfusion; and

⁃ promoting blood donation success stories and heroic blood donors to your media.

✔ Improve the infrastructure for blood donation and blood donor care.

✔ Focus attention on donor health and care and provide quality service to blood donors.

Most people can give blood if they are in good health. There are some basic requirements one  need to fulfill in order to become a blood donor. 

Below are some basic eligibility guidelines:

Age

You are aged between 18 and 65.

✔ In some countries national legislation permits 16–17 year-olds to donate provided that they fulfil the physical and hematological criteria required and that appropriate consent is obtained.

✔ In some countries, regular donors over the age of 65 may be accepted at the discretion of the responsible physician. The upper age limit in some countries are 60.

Weight

You weigh at least 50 kg.

✔ In some countries, donors of whole blood donations should weigh at least 45 kg to donate 350 ml ± 10%.

Health

You must be in good health at the time you donate.

You cannot donate if you have a cold, flu, sore throat, cold sore, stomach bug or any other infection.

If you have recently had a tattoo or body piercing you cannot donate for 6 months from the date of the procedure.  If the body piercing was performed by a registered health professional and any inflammation has settled completely, you can donate blood after 12 hours.

If you have visited the dentist for a minor procedure you must wait 24 hours before donating; for major work wait a month.

You must not donate blood If you do not meet the minimum haemoglobin level for blood donation:

✔ A test will be administered at the donation site. In many countries, a haemoglobin level of not less than 12.0 g/dl for females and not less than 13.0 g/dl for males as the threshold.

Travel

Travel to areas where mosquito-borne infections are endemic, e.g. malaria, dengue and Zika virus infections, may result in a temporary deferral.

Many countries also implemented the policy to defer blood donors with a history of travel or residence for defined cumulative exposure periods in specified countries or areas, as a measure to reduce the risk of transmitting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) by blood transfusion.

Behaviours

You must not give blood:

✔ If you engaged in “at risk” sexual activity in the past 12 months

✔ Individuals with behaviors below will be deferred permanently:

✔ Have ever had a positive test for HIV (AIDS virus)

✔ Have ever injected recreational drugs.

In the national blood donor selection guidelines, there are more behavior eligibility criteria. Criteria could be different in different countries.

Pregnancy and breastfeeding

Following pregnancy, the deferral period should last as many months as the duration of the pregnancy.

It is not advisable to donate blood while breast-feeding. Following childbirth, the deferral period is at least 9 months (as for pregnancy) and until 3 months after your baby is significantly weaned (i.e. getting most of his/her nutrition from solids or bottle feeding).

More information on eligibility to donate

National  eligibility guidelines must be followed when people donate blood in the blood service in specific countries.  To find out whether any health conditions, medications, professions or travel history to could affect your ability to give blood, please search for detailed information in the national/local blood services.