Blood donation should be part of our life culture

-(bound to hemoglobin, which is carried in red cells);supply of nutrients such as glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids (dissolved in the blood or bound to plasma proteins (e.g., blood lipids));removal of waste such as carbon dioxide, urea, and lactic acid ;immunological functions, including circulation of white blood cells, and detection of foreign material by antibodies; coagulation, the response to a broken blood vessel, the conversion of blood from a liquid to a semisolid gel to stop bleeding; messenger functions, including the transport of hormones and the signaling of tissue damage; regulation of core body temperature and hydraulic functions.

 Because blood connects us all we ought to thank blood donors and highlighting the dimension of sharing and connection between blood donors and patients. We ought to share life by giving blood and drawing the attention to the roles that voluntary donation systems play in encouraging people to care for one another and promote community cohesion.

There had been campaigns aiming to highlight stories of people whose lives have been saved through blood donation, to motivate regular blood donors to continue giving blood, and motivate people in good health who have never given blood to begin doing so, particularly young people.

We thank voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood and to raise awareness of the need for regular blood donations to ensure the quality, safety and availability of blood and blood products for patients in need.

Transfusion of blood and blood products helps save millions of lives every year. It can help patients suffering from life-threatening conditions live longer and with higher quality of life, and supports complex medical and surgical procedures. It also has an essential, life-saving role in maternal and child care and during man-made and natural disasters.

In Tanzania, demand exceeds supply, and blood services face the challenge of making sufficient blood available, while also ensuring its quality and safety. An adequate supply can only be assured through regular donations by voluntary unpaid blood donors. WHO’s goal is for all countries to obtain all their blood supplies from voluntary unpaid donors by 2020.

Today, only 62 countries get close to 100 per cent of their national blood supplies from voluntary unpaid blood donations, with 40 countries still dependent on family donors and even paid donors.

Tanzania faces acute shortages in the national blood bank due to poor collection.

However, several institutions are now at the forefront encouraging their staff members to donate blood. National statistics indicate that 80 per cent of the 432 deaths in every 100,000 Tanzanian mothers that occur every year are caused by lack of blood.

The trend in the past few years has been encouraging since an increasing number of companies were heeding the call for blood donations.

In developing countries such as Tanzania the availability of safe blood supplies is a scarce commodity and largely influenced by low participation rates amongst the citizens.