Vietnam collected 1.336 million blood units in 2018, of which 98.3 percent were donated by volunteer donors who account for only 1.68 percent of the nation’s population, heard a conference held by the National Steering Committee for Voluntary Blood Donation in Hanoi on March 12.

Nguyen Thi Xuan Thu, President of the Vietnam Red Cross Central Committee and deputy head of the national steering committee, said that the volume of blood received in 2018 was 11.5 times higher than that of 1994.

The national blood donation mobilisation network has been formed. To date, all provinces and cities have set up steering committees for the work at the provincial, municipal, and district levels. 

Many activities have been organised and produced positive results, including the Red Spring festival, the Red Sunday programme, and the Red Journey campaign.

Communication campaigns on blood donation have been intensified, contributing to increasing public awareness of voluntary blood donation, Thu added.

Deputy Director of the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion Pham Tuan Duong said that the strong development of annual voluntary blood donation campaigns has made great contributions to the growth of the country’s blood transfusion sector, as well as the modern health sector.

At the conference, the national steering committee granted certificates of merit to 35 collectives for great contributions to blood donation campaigns.–VNA