Red Sunday blood donation campaign to collect 50,000 blood units

Organised by Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper, the National Steering Committee on Traffic Safety and the National Institute of Haematology and Blood Transfusions (NIHBT), the annual event aims to handle the shortage of blood for emergency and treatment during the Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday.

Le Xuan Son, Tien Phong newspaper editor in chief and head of the campaign organising committee, said the Red Sunday campaign has become a national scale event with profound human significance, aiming to overcome blood shortages during the Lunar New Year period.

The event also aimed to call on organisations, State or private enterprises and a large number of people of different ages, regions, ethnic groups and professions to donate blood for the lives of patients who need blood transfusions, he added.

“We expect to receive 50,000 blood units from 80 blood donation festivals as part of the Red Sunday 2021 campaign that will be organised in 43 provinces and cites nationwide from late December 2020 to March. As of January 6, the programme has collected nearly 11,272 blood units at 16 blood donation festivals,” said Son at a press conference on January 7.

He added that the Red Sunday 2020 campaign received nearly 47,000 blood units. The COVID-19 pandemic occurred after Lunar New Year holiday so many provinces and cities were unable to organise the blood donation festivals as planned.

According to Dr. Bach Quoc Khanh, Director of the National Institute of Haematology and Blood Transfusion, the pressure to receive and supply blood before, during and after Tet is always a constant concern for blood transfusion facilities; especially for blood products like platelets that can only be stored for three to five days.

Khanh said that the institute provided blood and blood products to 180 hospitals in 28 provinces and cities in the North. During Tet, the institute needs at least 50,000-55,000 units of blood, of which 36,000-41,000 units of blood in January and about 16,000-18,000 units in February.