Celebrating World Blood Donor Day 2017

Blood is the source of life and a common factor that connects all living beings. Being a vital component for every human being, it maintains the tissues of our body and helps in the circulation of oxygen. One doesn’t need to emphasize the importance of blood nor on the fact that loss of a significant amount of blood can be fatal for a person. This fact is precisely the sole reason why this initiative called World Blood Donor Day was started in 2004. Every year, the World Blood Donor Day is celebrated on 14th June.

There are many reasons why someone could immediately be in need of blood; they could have undergone surgery or met with an accident. Such cases can be a few among those stressful times for friends and family when one has to arrange for blood at a moment’s notice. This is exactly why it is important to donate blood and not just for your near and dear ones, in the case of emergencies but for a stranger battling with death and awaiting help. This is also the idea behind WHO’s slogan of Don’t wait for disaster to strike, give blood, give now, give often.

These posters by WHO encourage the people all around the world to go for this generous act of donating blood.

(Poster Image Courtesy: World Health Organization)

WHO’s campaign in 2016 on World Blood Donor Day focused on thanking blood donors and gave out the message that Blood Connects Us All.

(Image Courtesy: The Independent BD)

A year before in 2015 that the organization had again emphasized the importance of saving blood and gave gratitude to donors with the message Thank You For Saving My Life.

(Image Courtesy: Gozo News)

Countless celebrities have been a part of various blood donation drives and have given it a boost with their star power and also by donating their blood.

Josh Duhamel, star of Life as We Know it and singer Fergie’s husband is associated with American Red Cross and donates blood on a regular basis.

(Image Courtesy: American Red Cross Youth)

Famous actor and martial arts expert Jackie Chan is a regular blood donor.

(Image Courtesy: Young Blood)

Ian Somerhalder who is well known for playing the vampire lead in Vampire Diaries donates blood and encourages others to do the same.

(Image Courtesy: Notey)

Jimmy Smits of The Walking Dead supports Red Cross and donates blood. He was part of the The American Red Cross Zombie Blood Drive campaign.

(Image Courtesy: The AV Club)

It’s not just the celebrity men but even famous women are part of such campaigns, Kristin Cavallari donates blood on a regular basis.

(Image Courtesy: Zimbio)

Support has been pouring in from celebrities and people in general on this day and #WorldBloodDonorDay is circulating on Social media.  This trend has existed for years and has helped the cause a lot. 

(Image Courtesy: Twitter)

Some startling facts would probably come as a surprise to you, but blood donation by a small 1% population can help save millions of life in a nation. It is mostly the high-income companies that comprise the greater half in 112.5 blood donations collected globally and out of these, 57 countries get their blood donation from unpaid donors.

Blood donation is a generous act, and just one pint is needed out of the 10-pint units that body has. Healthy donors can donate blood every 56 days without any worry. There are some other interesting facts related to blood donation you might not know of.

(Image Courtesy: BBC)

1. Donating blood is healthy for you. It prevents the accumulation of toxic amounts of iron especially in the case of those who are prone to it. This helps in bringing down blood pressure, blood glucose and reduces the risk of heart problems in patients with metabolic syndrome.

2. You can donate and preserve blood for your future use. This type of donation is called autologous donation.

3. It helps you to keep a check on your health as well since people who donate blood are screened for various diseases such as HIV and viral hepatitis, they are also made to take a physical examination to assess their health.

4. Blood with type O is called universal donors whereas those with blood group AB have a tough time finding a matching donor as they can only accept blood from AB group.

5. Rh factor or Rhesus factor is an inherited protein found on the surface of red blood cells. Around 85 % of the global population has Rh+ Blood Types of A, B, AB or O but the remaining have the rare Rh negative blood type. Finding matching donors for this particular group is by no means an easy task.

6. Another health benefit of donating blood is that it can decrease your chances of cancer as iron increases the amount of free-radical damage in the body.

7. A man called James Harrison once saved around 2 million babies due to his rare blood type. An average person who donates blood can save 1000 lives in a lifetime.

There are endless reasons why you need to be among the unpaid donors who save countless lives. Be it the cancer patients who require blood the most or people who met an accident; there is no greater deed than giving the gift of life to someone.

#GiveBlood. Give Now. Give Often.

(Featured Image Courtesy: ABC News)