A blood donation drive was launched on December 26 in Hanoi, expected to collect about 50,000 blood units during the 2019 Chu Nhat Do (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 blood supply shortage 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.

Khánh 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/VNP