National Voluntary Blood Donation Day

National Voluntary Blood Donation Day is getting celebrated in India at 1st of October every year to share the need and importance of the blood in the life of an individual. It was first started celebrating on 1st of October in the year 1975 through the Indian Society of Blood Transfusion and Immunohaematology. Indian Society of Blood Transfusion and Immunohaematology was first established at 22nd of October in the year 1971 under the leadership of Mrs. K. Swaroop Krishen and Dr. J.G. Jolly.

National Voluntary Blood Donation Day:

National Voluntary Blood Donation Day is celebrated on 1st of October every year.

Objectives:

Transfusing or donating blood or its components to the needy person has become very important part of the humanity in the modern health care system. It does not matter who is the blood donor or blood receiver, a donor can be a receiver in the future as well as a receiver can be a healthy donor in the nearest future. So donating blood without any expectation is the great humanity and vital part in the life saving process. Do not donate blood only to your relatives or friends, donate blood to voluntarily for any human being is the real humankind as it can save many lives.

In order to prevent the blood transmitting diseases through the blood transfusion, it becomes very mandatory to carefully investigate (through the advanced testing techniques like nucleic acid testing) the every unit of collected blood to prevent the life threatening diseases such as the AIDS, syphilis, Hepatitis-B, Hepatitis-C, malaria and many more. Blood donation should be encouraged by the voluntary blood donors only as their blood is safe instead of professional or paid blood donors. Voluntary blood donors never tells a lie and become agree for advance testing of their blood as they really want to save the precious life of someone.

To make aware the people towards the blood donation, a variety of events, awareness programmes, camps and supplementary promotional activities are organized in all states at the National Voluntary Blood Donation Day. There are various criteria for the blood donors according to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940. The age of blood donors should be between 18 – 60 years, weight 45 kg or above, pulse rate range 60 to 100/minute, BP normal, Hb 12.5gm / 100ml and body temperature should not exceeds 37.5 degree centigrade.

Importance of National Voluntary Blood Donation Day:

Blood is vital component of the human life as it provides the crucial nourishment to the body tissues and organs. National Voluntary Blood Donation Day is celebrated to bring the great changes in the society in order to follow the life-saving measures and prevent the serious illness caused by the violence and injury, child birth related complications, road traffic accidents and many more conditions.

Safe blood donation saves many lives of all ages and from all walks of life every year. The states like Tripura, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Maharashtra are considered as the national level voluntary blood donors. Tripura, a North Eastern State of the country, is considered as the highest level of voluntary blood donor (93%) in India whereas Manipur is considered as lowest in the country.

It is necessary to celebrate this day at a great level to remove the ignorance, fear and misconceptions of the general public towards the voluntary blood donation campaign. Voluntary organizations of the country are paying their valuable time and using their resources in order to encourage the students / youths, colleges, institutions, clubs / NGOs and etc.