World Blood Donor Day

World blood donation day is celebrated every year on 14th June. The main aim of celebrating world blood donor day is to raise awareness about safe blood and blood products for transfusion. Many governmental and non-governmental organizations conduct various campaigns to spread awareness and opportunities for donating blood. This article will put light on the importance of celebrating October 1 blood donation day and National Blood Donation Day.  

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Importance of October 1 Blood Donation Day

Since 1975, India is celebrating 01st October as the national voluntary blood donation day. The  Indian Society of Blood Transfusion and Immunohematology was recommended to celebrate this blood donor day. Many governments organizations and national health authorities are yearly creating huge adequate resources for increasing the blood donors and facilities to collect and save more blood. The blood donations from world donors are saving millions of lives around the world. 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has initiated to celebrate every year on 14th June the World Blood Donor Day, because, 14th of June is the birth anniversary of Austrian biologist Karl Landsteiner. He contributed greatly to explaining the distinction between the blood groups in 1900. People from all over the world who lost their blood through accidents and who require blood for the surgeries are saved by the donated blood. 

What is Blood Transfusion? 

Blood transfusion simply means to transfer blood or components of blood from one person to another. The person who donates their blood is considered a donor, and the person who receives the blood is regarded as the recipient. Usually, blood transfusion is an excellent process to save the life of people who have lost blood through accident or suffering from issues of bone marrow or blood loss due to surgery or loss of blood through bleeding, and many more. 

Theme of World Blood Donor Day 

Every year, world blood donor day is celebrated, and also the theme for celebrating world blood donor day varies from year to year. The theme of the blood donor day celebration for the past five years is explained in detail. 

The theme of world blood donor day for this year is "Give blood and keep the world-beating”. The main aim of this theme is to highlight the significant contribution of blood donors to protect the world’s pulsation by providing blood on time to save lives. This theme and the day encouraged many more people to come forward to donate blood at a regular interval for creating a healthier nation. 

"Blood donation and universal access to safe blood transfusion" was the theme of world blood donor day 2020. The main aim behind observing this theme was to achieve universal health coverage and to encourage people to simply make use of donor blood. 

“Safe Blood for All” was the theme for the National Blood Donation Day 2019. The aim behind this theme was to transfer suitable blood for all the people who are in need.

World blood donor day 2018 theme was “Blood connects us all”, which means the blood transfusion can connect human beings. It is a wonderful opportunity for one to save the life of an unknown person by donating blood. Greece also hosted an event on this day to thank the blood donors and encourage the new blood donors and existing donors. 

The theme of world blood donor day 2017 was “What can you do? Give blood. Give now. Give often”. WHO observed this theme to encourage blood donation among people and to regularize this activity for saving the life of people who are in need. 

"Share life, give blood" was the theme of world blood donor day 2016. WHO observed this theme to spread awareness about sharing the blood for patients who are in need may be small for donors, but it means a lot for receivers. It will help to save a life. 

History behind celebrating World Blood Donor Day 

14th June is celebrated as World Blood Day, because Austrian biologist Karl Landsteiner was born on 14th June 1864, he was a famous biologist, physician, and immunologist. Karl Landsteiner was the first person who identified the groups in the blood based on the antigen and antibody present in the blood. He also did much research about blood transfusion. He also found different cells in the blood. Karl Landsteiner mainly distinguished the blood type based on their agglutinates.  Karl Landsteiner mainly got an idea to work on bloodstreams after seeing the death of many people during world war I, mainly due to the huge blood loss.  Karl Landsteiner also received a Nobel prize for his research work.  

In order to pay tribute to his excellent contribution in the field of biology, especially immunology, the day was chosen to celebrate and spread awareness among the people. So, WHO took its first initiative on celebrating World blood donor day on 14th June 2004. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies also supported an initiative of WHO to raise awareness and to encourage safe blood donation from unpaid healthy volunteers. 

In May 2005, the World Health Organisation joined hands with 192 member states during the 58th World Health Assembly and officially announced world blood donor day. And also taken measures to encourage all blood donors to save the lives of people around the world.

Human blood majorly has four blood groups, A, B, AB, and O. Researchers are distinguishing the blood groups based on the presence of antigen and antibodies in the bloodstream. Human blood is also classified based on the presence of the Rh components. The person with O negative blood group was considered a universal donor because they can donate blood to all blood groups but can receive blood from only O negative donors. The person with AB positive blood group is considered a universal recipient because these people can receive blood from any person but can donate blood to only AB positive recipients.

Objectives behind celebrating World Blood Donor Day

The celebration of world blood donor day provides a global platform for thanking the individuals who have donated the blood and to encourage the ones who are in an idea to donate the blood. 

On this day, many organizations are spreading awareness about the benefits of donating blood around the world. The program conducted on world blood donor day is effectively eliminating paid blood donations. The family/replacements can donate the blood to receive the required blood group from the blood bank. Anyone who does not have a family/replacement can also utilize free blood from the blood bank during an emergency. 

The world blood donor day celebration also encouraged various countries to adopt the Club 25 approach to encourage a commitment to regular, voluntary blood donation among young people, who are at low risk of transmitting diseases through blood transfusion. The regular commitment to donating blood will also satisfy the emergency need for blood for patients around the nation. 

To increase safe blood transfer among the people, world blood donor day can promote and ensure worldwide international collaboration about the principles of voluntary non-remunerated donation. The National Blood Donation Day also helps to maintain an adequate blood supply to satisfy all the needs of blood transfusion throughout the year. This encourages unpaid blood donors around the world to save the lives of people. The National Blood Donation Day also encourages low-risk behavior among donors. Through this method, individuals can also protect their health. Here we explained the history behind celebrating world blood donor day, the importance of national blood day, and the theme of world blood donor day in detail.