Countries around the world celebrated World Blood Donour Day (WBDD) on Friday to raise awareness about the need for safe blood and to thank donors for their life-saving gifts. In Pakistan, national health organisations marked the day by holding campaigns to raise awareness about the need for more, safe blood donations, as the country battles an ongoing, safe blood shortage problem.
Blood is an important resource for patients who suffer from life-threatening conditions and in maternal and prenatal care. Pakistan, however, has an acute safe blood shortage - something that urgently needs to be addressed, according to Hasan Abbas Zaheer, Project Director and National Coordinator of the Safe Blood Transfusion Programme (SBTP).
Around 3 percent of the country's population should donate blood in order to meet the country's needs, according to Zaheer. "Pakistan has additional transfusion needs due to the high burden of Thalassemia and so we need about 3 percent of our population to donate blood on a regular basis, two to three times in a year, to sustain our blood transfusion system on 100 percent voluntary non-remunerated blood donations," said Zaheer.
Social media platforms are also rallying behind the cause. Facebook launched its blood donation feature in 2017 and in Pakistan last year. The feature allows people to sign up as blood donors and to locate their nearest blood donation centres and those who need blood urgently. Since 2018, more than 2 million people have signed up to be blood donors on Facebook in Pakistan out of 35 million globally.
Comments
Comments are closed.