14 June 2017: World Blood Donor Day

World Blood Donor Day is observed each year on 14 June. The theme for 2017 focuses on blood donation in emergencies. Therefore the 2017 World Blood Donor Day slogan is ‘’Give blood. Give now. Give often.’’

The first World Blood Donor Day was observed in 2004, which was followed by its designation as an annual global event by the 58th World Health Assembly in 2005.

World Blood Donor Day is now celebrated each year throughout the world on 14 June to raise awareness of the importance of blood donation and to recognize the contribution of voluntary unpaid blood donors in saving lives and improving health.

World Blood Donor Day has a further purpose: to create wider awareness throughout the world about the need for availability and appropriate use of safe blood and blood products, and the need for many more people to make a commitment to regular voluntary unpaid blood donation.

The date of 14 June is the birthday of Karl Landsteiner (1868–1943), an Austrian biologist and physician, considered to be the founder of modern blood transfusion. Landsteiner discovered the ABO blood groups in 1901, developed the modern system of classification of blood groups, and identified, in 1937, together with Alexander S. Wiener, the Rhesus factor, thus enabling physicians to transfuse blood without endangering a patient’s life.

World Blood Donor Day complements the national blood donor days and weeks that are organized in a number of countries. Some are held at the same time as World Blood Donor Day while others take place at different times of the year.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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