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Donation drive kicks off

By Li Yao (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-06-15 09:14

Two donors walk out of Xidan Blood Donation Center on Monday. As of Monday night, 1,130 people had signed up at outdoor collection venues in Beijing to address citywide shortages. Wan Xiang / for China Daily

Beijing - The city has launched a blood drive to encourage more people to donate to address seasonal blood shortages and ensure supply security.

The campaign aims to keep a balanced blood supply throughout the year and create a stable donor pool for urgent demands in the future, said Liu Jiang, head of the Blood Center of the Red Cross.

Any healthy person aged from 18 to 55 is eligible to sign up on the website of the Beijing Red Cross Blood Center or at the outdoor blood collection stations.

Yin Zheng, 24, works at the Beijing Volunteer Federation. He signed up as an on-call donor on June 11, having already donated nearly 3, 000 cubic centimeters of blood since 2005.

Yin said the donor outreach initiative is a necessary step for government authorities to address seasonal blood shortages, as the main donor groups, such as university students and the migrant population, dwindle during the summer.

About 60 percent of donors are university students and migrant workers, according to figures from the Ministry of Health.

"The number of people signing up for the drive suggests their enthusiasm, yet their commitment and reliability remain to be seen," Yin said.

"Donors' willingness may falter, and confirmation of availability may find many physically unfit after taking medication or consuming greasy foods."

The campaign has been scheduled to coincide with the eighth annual World Blood Donor Day, which was on Tuesday and is themed "More Blood, More Life" this year.

As of Monday night, 1,130 people had signed up at the outdoor collection venues, according to the blood center.

Zhong Qinglin, 49, runs a shoe store in Shijingshan district. He has donated more than 4,000 cubic centimeters of blood since 1998 and is on call for donations of a rare blood type, Rh negative.

"I am pleased that my contribution has helped save many lives. I hope more people will be inspired to sign up as potential donors, including my son, who turns 18 later this year," Zhong said.

The Beijing Blood Center said a 74-year-old patient in urgent need of a rare blood type for uremia treatment received 400 cubic centimeters of life-saving blood on June 10 from Liu Hongfeng, a 34-year-old farmer in Binzhou, East China's Shandong province.

Liu's profile was found to be the only match after a screening on June 9 at China's Rare Blood Type Database in Shanghai. She made the donation in Shandong the next day, and the blood was transported to Beijing.

The proportion of non-remunerated voluntary donations has reached 99 percent since China enacted the blood donation law in 2009. More than 11 million donations were made in the 11 years before 2009, data from the Ministry of Health showed.

Health Minister Chen Zhu called on public servants to fulfill their responsibilities through unpaid voluntary blood donations last October.

So far, 62 countries have blood transfusion services based entirely on voluntary blood donation, up from 39 in 2002, the World Health Organization announced.