Chennai: One per cent blood donation of the population is sufficient to meet a country’s basic requirements for safe blood, says WHO. Though India collects nine million units per year, the demand is three million more units.
Tamil Nadu stands first in the number of volunteers donating blood and around 7.11 lakh units of blood were collected last year. “There is no proper awareness among people. People think they become weak after donating blood and that they will catch infection while donating blood,” said Dr Sujata Dhanuka of Metropolis Healthcare Ltd.
If a person donates blood once in a lifetime there will not be any shortage of blood, says Dr Rema Menon, medical officer, Blood Bank, Apollo Hospitals. “People between 18 and 60 years can donate blood. More than 50 per cent of donors here in Apollo are between 20 and 40 years.
Also, there are more donors in the age group of 50 plus,” said Dr Rema. Organ transplants, especially liver transplantation,  require more blood. “There is always demand for blood as accidents and surgeries happen every now and then,” said Dr Rema.
Blood donors should be screened for infection such as HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and syphilis before donating blood. WHO says around107 million units of blood donations are collected globally every year. Nearly 50 per cent of these blood donations are collected in high-income countries.
“A donor should not donate blood with empty or full stomach. We always ask donors to stay at the blood bank for 15-20 minutes after donating blood. A donor can donate blood every three months,” adds Dr Sujata. Anyone who weights above 50 kg and with the hemoglobin count of 12 can donate blood.
A voluntary unpaid blood donor 28-year-old Sonia says, “I make sure that every three months I donate blood. We should also encourage others to donate blood as we are saving many precious lives.”
‘Blood connections’ for emergencies
Chennai: Every two seconds, someone in India needs blood. Keeping this in mind, Apollo Hospitals on World Blood Donor Day, June 14, launched its online social initiative, Blood Connections. With increasing number of people, especially youngsters using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Apollo Hospitals started the initiative to connect with more number of donors and interact with them in case of emergencies.
 
After launching the online portal, http://www.apollohospitals.com/bloodconnections/login.php on Friday here, health secretary Dr J. Radhakrishnan said, “WHO calls for all countries to obtain blood from voluntary blood donors by 2020. Let’s achieve this target by 2017. Everyday we have requirement of blood and 4,800 blood camps were organised in our state till recently.”  

Blood donation camp
 
Tamil Nadu is the leading state in voluntary unpaid blood donation but still we need to increase the number of donors, he added. Preetha Reddy, MD, Apollo Hospitals, said, “WHO states that India needs 12 million units of blood, but collects only nine million units per annum.”
 
As Apollo Hospitals has crossed more than one million likes on Facebook, it’s hopeful of registering more number of people in its newly launched online portal. Dr Rema Menon, medical officer, Blood Bank, Apollo Hospital, said, “This is the 10th World Blood Donor Day and the theme is ‘Give a gift of life. Donate blood’. Each unit of blood helps three patients. In Apollo, last year around 16,000 voluntary donors walked in to donate blood and that helped 45,000 patients nearly.”
 
In case of blood emergency, a person can log on and search for the required blood group and SMS or email the user to get in touch with him/her. On account of World Blood Donation Day, Vasan Dental Care in association with the Rotary Blood Bank conducted a blood donation camp in the city in which around 200 people donated blood. Vasan Dental Care employees also donated blood at the camp.