With the message “Donating blood to save lives – yours and mine”, the blood donation campaign has become an important event contributing to addressing the shortage of blood for emergency and treatment during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Jointly held by Tien Phong Newspaper, the National Steering Committee on Traffic Safety and the National Institute of Haematology and Blood Transfusions (NIHBT), the campaign is set to be held in 43 provinces and cities across the country.
Addressing the launch ceremony, Deputy Minister of Health Tran Van Thuan said that after 26 years of organisation, voluntary blood donation movement in Vietnam has attained encouraging results from collecting only 100,000 units of blood in 1994 to over 1.4 million units of blood in recent years.
Despite impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 1.4 million units of blood were donated in 2020 with 1.5% of the population participating in donating blood.
However, donated blood only meets around 75% of the demand for emergency and treatment.
Since late November 2020, 19 provinces and cities have held “Red Sunday” events with reception of more than 20,000 units of blood.
*On the same day, the “Red Sunday” was launched in Da Nang with the participation of about 1,000 young blood donors, donating 800 units of blood.
* The “Red Sunday” blood donation campaign was also launched in Thai Binh Province on January 17 with the response of a large number of local donors.
