VietNamNet Bridge – Participants in the first cross-country blood donation campaign, known as “Red journey”, who have helped collected over 10,000 units of blood for needy patients, were greeted in Hanoi’s My Dinh stadium on July 28.

Volunteers in the blood donation campaign. (Photo: VNA)

The “Red journey” began in southern most Ca Mau province on July 7 and has gone through 15 cities and provinces in total for 22 days. As many as 5,000 volunteers joined the event.

Sending out a message “A Vietnamese bloodstream”, the campaign has been enthusiastically responded by young people, among whom there are those who have regularly donated blood, like Nguyen Huu Dong from central Thanh Hoa province who has given his blood for the eighth time.

During the 22-day journey, over 100 talks on blood donation were organised while 20,000 leaflets were delivered to raise public awareness of the good deed and inherited autosomal recessive blood disorders (Thalassemia).

Nguyen Anh Tri, Director of the National Hematology and Blood Transfusion Institute, praised the volunteers for having encouraged the participation of tens of thousands of people to join the effort.

Presently, over 5 million Vietnamese people are affected by autosomal recessive blood disorders, more than 20,000 of whom need regular treatment.

Each year, Vietnam needs more than 1.7 million blood units for treatment while the blood collected only meets half of the demand.

Source: Vietnam Plus