World Blood Donor Day, 14th June 2013

Dr A Meina Singh *

Blood Donation Camp for July 23rd Victims :: October 10 2009

Every year, the 14th June is celebrated throughout the world as 'World blood Donor day' with different slogans and this year is the tenth celebration. It started in 2004 on the same day with the initiative from the 4 international core agencies of health and blood transfusion namely' World Health Organization' (WHO), 'International federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent' (IFRC), 'International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations' (IFBDO) and' International Society of Blood Transfusion' (ISBT). The 14th June is the birthday of Karl Landsteiner who discovered the ABO blood groups and later awarded Nobel Prize for his discovery, and this auspicious date was chosen to pay tribute to this man known as the father of modern blood groups.

This year, is 10th anniversary and the global event is being celebrated in Paris, France, on 14 June 2013 hosted by the 'French National Blood Service', Etablissement Français du Sang (ESF). The slogan of this year's celebration is 'Give the gift of life, donate blood' and it focuses the value of blood donation which is a gift that not only save lives, but also help people live longer and more productive lives. The celebration will strengthen again the Melbourne Declaration 2009 of WHO in which WHO Calls for action to all governments of the world to achieve 100% voluntary non-remunerated donations by 2020.

In Manipur, this day is also being celebrated under the aegis of State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC) Manipur at the Centenary Hall of Manipur University, Canchipur. To thank and show gratitude to the life savers , the organisers will felicitate repeated blood donors who have donated voluntarily 20 or more times and a few blood donor organizations of the state for their altruistic act of saving lives.

The SBTC has proposed for a month long celebration with multifarious activities which include many blood donation motivational talks and VB donation camps throughout the state, non-replacement month in the RIMS, JNIMS blood banks subject to a few conditions, etc and these will be in action soon. As part of the celebration, Department of Immunhaematology and Blood Transfusion, Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal is organising a mega voluntary blood donation camp on the 15th June 2013 at its premises.

Today out of the 193 member countries of WHO, 62 countries have achieved 100% voluntary blood donation. This 100% VBD means that the blood collected or the blood needs of the country are only from the voluntary non-remunerated blood donors (VNRBD), none from the replacement or other types of blood donors. In other words, the total need of blood for the country should be met only from the blood donated by voluntary blood donors.

When the National AIDS Control Programme III (NACP III) was launched in 2007, the national target for voluntary blood donation was 90%. The VBD rate in India rose from 54.4% in 2006-07 to 84.3% in 2011-12. As per NACO annual report of 2012-13, the states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Tripura, Mizoram, Goa, Chandigarh, Haryana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry and Sikkim have crossed the national targets for VBD collections and rated as 'good performing states' collecting blood from the VBD above 80%. The state of Manipur is rated among the poor performing states.

The blood needs of a nation can be easily met if 1-3% of the population donates. The annual blood requirement of India is about 80 lakh units and about 67.56 lakh blood units were collected across the country in 2012-13, the shortage being about 12.5 lakhs. For Manipur, the blood requirement will be about 27,000 (1% of 27 lakhs population) and the collection is about 21,000 thus the shortage of blood is 5000 - 6000 in a year. In Manipur there are 3 government blood bank and one private blood bank. Calculating from the hospital beds and transfusion requests, the RIMS Hospital alone requires about 12,000+ blood units annually and the private hospitals in and around Imphal would require approximately 2500+ units per year.

After calculating the collections from the rests of the blood banks in the state, the shortage will be about 5000 units per year. The worrying factor is the dismal figure of repeated blood donors in this state. It needs to be increased and retained for a sustainable blood supply in this state. The collection from individual VBD is still very less and majority of the blood donors are family VBD and replacement blood donors. Major contributions are coming from the paramilitary and security forces such as battalions of CRPF, Assam Rifles, BSF, NCC, Manipur Police, military regiments etc.

Notable civilian organizations contributing to the VBD are Association of Voluntary Blood Donation of Manipur (AVBDM), Lions Club, IMA, Sathya Sai Seva Orgz, VHU RIMS, Amway Opportunity Foundation, Punshi Sintha Self Help Group (an organization of blind people), NYK, NSS, UDA, UCM, Club 25, Student bodies (DESAM, AMSU etc), Youth Congress, Irawat Celebration Committee, many more and several individual real voluntary blood donors. We are proud to have in this state many individual donors who have donated blood nearing half century, it's praiseworthy.

NACO has devised specific strategies to increase voluntary blood donations. Still there is a big gap between the state's demand for blood and supply from the blood donors. Thus the need of the hour is "AWARENESS, AWARENESS IS THE KEY". Many people are not donating blood due to the lack of awareness of the blood donation. A large number of the population are still afraid of blood donation, still shrouded in myths and false beliefs such as "blood donation is harmful to health", the needle is very painful", "I have no time", "I'll donate only when my family requires blood"," why should I donate", "it's not my duty" etc. Blood donation is our social, moral and collective responsibility. If we donate blood regularly, nobody would die for want of blood. In the hospitals, blood should be waiting for the patients, not the patients waiting for blood. Let these words prevail "Getting blood is my right, blood donation is my bounden duty'.

To achieve these, I would like to put forward a few humble suggestions:

A. Strengthening of State Blood Transfusion Council, Manipur (SBTC): SBTC is responsible for overall implementation of all policy decisions within the state for the blood transfusion service taken up by NBTC (National Blood transfusion Services).

B. Inclusion of topics on VBD and blood transfusion in the school curriculum: School students especially from secondary schools are 'BLOOD DONORS OF TOMORROW' hence the knowledge about blood donation and importance of blood transfusion must be made awared to them from the young age.

C. Involvement of politicians and bureaucrats: 60 constituencies, thousands of political activists, sitting MLA and ministers, public leaders, panchayet members, bureaucrats in different districts and divisional levels if committed for the cause motivating people of their constituencies for blood donation, a 100% VBD will not be a distant dream. Hon'ble chief minister of Tripura Shri Manik Sarkar is the living example for the success of blood donation movement in Tripura. Special attention of health ministry towards the voluntary blood donation and blood transfusion service in the state will be very effective in the VBD movement.

D. Taking blood donation to the rural and hill population should be included in the VBD programme. So far, not much contribution is coming from the hill and rural populations, so also there is ethnic variation in the voluntary blood donations. We need to sensitize these populations through awareness campaigns.

E. Media advocacy: media has enormous role in motivating people for donation, without their support and involvement, reaching to the general public will be very difficult.

F. Felicitations of repeated blood donors especially in important days such as World Blood Donor Day (14th June), National Blood Donation Day (1st October), National Cancer Rose Day (22nd September) etc

G. Separate queues for repeated VBD in the hospital OPD, banks etc. H. Grace marks for job interviews, college admissions etc to the voluntary blood donors may be considered as encouragement to the blood donors.

I. Co-ordination and concerted efforts of multiple stake-holders of VBD i.e. SBTC, Donor motivators, Voluntary blood donors, Blood donor organizations, Civil society organizations, Blood bankers, End users (patient and clinicians) and Health policy makers is the need of the hour. SBTC must lead and goad for the cause and the rest to join hands and work actively.

On this day of World Blood Donor Day, the 14th June 2013, we salute and express our heartfelt gratitude to those blood donors who donated blood saving lives and to those organisations who are relentlessly working for the cause of voluntary blood donations.

Our appeal to: General public, Security forces, Paramilitary forces, NGOs, Clubs, Youth bodies, NYK, NSS, Student bodies, Social workers, Educational institutions, Political workers, Public leaders, Ministers, bureaucrats, Professionals, Banks, Insurance companies, Corporate sectors ….. people from all walks of life to donate blood, save lives.