World Blood Donor Day 2022

World Blood Donor Day is celebrated on June 14th to raise global awareness on the need for safe blood and blood products for transfusion. Declaring this year’s theme as ‘Donating blood is an act of solidarity. Join the effort and save lives’, the World Health Organization urges member states to celebrate the day as a timely requirement in the health sector.

The World Blood Donor Day is also a tribute to voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their inestimable contribution to making a nation healthier, while calling to action governments and national health authorities to provide adequate resources to increase the collection of blood and manage access to blood and transfusion of those who require it.

While the main host for the day’s events is Mexico, Sri Lanka’s National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) which hosted the main event in 2014, will this year have its commemoration events at cluster centres at sub-national level. This is as a token of gratitude to blood donors and donation campaign organizers.

The NBTS will also send SMS messages to all those who donated blood last year and arrange a social media campaign (Facebook) to increase public awareness regarding World Blood Donor Day.

The NBTS is a special campaign functioning under the Ministry of Health and is the sole supplier of blood and blood products to all government hospitals and a majority of private sector hospitals. The service has a well-organized centrally-coordinated network of blood banks across the country and a state-of-the-art laboratory system. There are 102 hospital-based blood banks and two stand-alone blood centers affiliated with 24 cluster centers depending on their geographic distribution.

Over the years, the NBTS has successfully met the national demand by collecting about 450,000 units of blood annually with the invaluable support of voluntary unpaid donors and donor campaign organizers. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent problems such as limited resources and mobility, the NBTS has collected 400,000 units of blood each in the last two years.

A hands-on international training programme on Basic Immunohematology for Medical Laboratory Technologists from Indonesia and Timor-Leste in October 2019.

After Sri Lanka’s NBTS was declared a WHO Collaborating Centre for Blood Transfusion Services in September 2018, it has conducted many successful national and international training programmes. It has also developed the Quality Manual which outlines the general form of the quality system in operation; describes the quality management system for the benefit of laboratory management and staff; and provides information for users and for inspection/accreditation agencies. This Quality Manual is designed to meet the requirements and standards for ISO 15189 accreditation and has been reviewed by the Sri Lanka Accreditation Board.

IEC material produced by NBTS on post-donation of blood. | The Quality Manual of the NBTS and the Certificate of Accreditation.

The center has also developed Information, Education and Communication (IEC) material on donor motivation, post-donor care, donor nutrition and motivation of donors with rare blood types and blood donation during the pandemic.

On World Blood Donor Day, the WHO Country Office joins hands with NBTS to salute the unsung heroes of voluntary blood donors and blood donation campaign organizers for their priceless contribution to the betterment of the health of unknown recipients across the country.

Key related resources

https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2022/06/14/default-calendar/world-blood-donor-day-2022

https://www.paho.org/en/campaigns/world-blood-donor-day-14-june-2022