Vietnam honours 100 outstanding blood donors

Speaking at the event, Truong Thi Mai, member of the Politburo, Secretariat and Head of the Mass Mobilisation Commission of the Party Central Committee, praised the national blood donation progamme and shared her high appreciation for the contribution of the donors in the past ten years.

“During the past ten years (2007-2016), the voluntary blood donation movement has achieved impressive achievements, with more than 8.5 million blood units collected. The collected blood volume keeps increasing year by year both terms of quantity and quality,” said Mai. 

Some 465,000 units of blood were donated in 2007, and nearly 1.4 million units were given in 2016, according to Mai. 

“This blood has helped boost the treatment of millions of people, particularly those on the edge between life and death,” said the official. 

According to Mai, the power and value of voluntary blood donation has been multiplied by the love, kindness and devotion of millions of Vietnamese people. 

Voluntary blood donors both young and old, men to women, have brought warmth and vitality to the society and they have helped confirm that “No one is left behind on the path to development.”

June 14 became Blood Donor Day in 2004. 

The national steering committee for voluntary blood donation and the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion have held various activities from June 12-14 to credit the blood donors. 

The World Blood Donor Day is aimed at raising awareness of the need for safe blood products and to thank blood donors for the life-saving gift of blood. 

With the theme “Give blood. Give now. Give often”, this year’s campaign will focus on blood donation in emergencies. Activities will focus on encouraging people to strengthen the emergency preparedness of health services in their community by donating blood and engaging authorities in the establishment of effective national blood donor programmes.