Bui Phuong Nga (centre), the runner-up of Miss Vietnam 2018, donates blood at the launching ceremony of the blood donation festival in Hanoi (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – A was
launched on December 26 in Hanoi, expected to collect about 50,000 blood units
during the (Red Sunday).
The annual event is
organised by Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper, the National Steering
Committee on Traffic Safety and the National Institute of Haematology and Blood
Transfusions (NIHBT).
The event was first held
in 2008 for one Sunday in Hanoi, hence the name.
The campaign is an effort
to ease the in hospitals throughout the country during
the Tet (lunar New Year) holidays.
The one-month long event
will take place in 39 provinces and cities across the country with nearly 70
blood collection events, including the main festival in Hanoi on January 6,
2019. Many localities have registered to collect thousands of blood units such
as Hanoi (6,000), HCM City (3,000) and Dak Lak (3,800).
Speaking at press
conference on December 26 in Hanoi, NIHBT director Dr Bach Quoc Khanh said the
need of blood for emergency and treatment at hospitals increases during the
last months of the year.
“From the beginning of
December, many blood transfusion centres, especially in Hanoi and HCM City,
have announced blood shortages and called on the community for help,” said Khanh.
“Red Sunday has played
an important role in health care activities of the health sector, especially in
handling blood shortages during summer and Tet periods,” said
Khanh.
Khanh said that in
January 2019, the country would need 150,000 units of blood for medical
treatment.
The newspaper’s editor
in chief Le Xuan Son said that Red Sunday aimed to promote voluntary blood
donation and change thinking about blood donation.
“It (Red Sunday)
mobilises volunteers to donate blood for emergency, treatment before, during
and after Tet at all health facilities throughout the
country,” said Son.
According to Son, blood
collection from Red Sunday events has increased remarkably over the past five
years, from 8,419 units in 2014 to 47,766 units in 2018. More than 123,000 blood
units were collected over the past 10 Red Sunday events.
The NIHBT statistics
showed that the country has collected 1.4 million units of blood nationwide,
equivalent to 1.6 percent of population to donate blood in 2018. Collected
blood has met over 60 percent of the country’s demand of blood for emergency,
examination and reservation.-VNA
Source: VietnamPlus
