A record haul of 5 413 South Africans flocked to local blood drives and donor centres on World Blood Donor Day (June 14) reporting for country duty by donating blood in their droves.
The tally for the entire week amounted to 21 874 people which included 6 763 new and lapsed donors joining the crusade to save lives.
“With more than 17 600 successful donations, and with each unit being used for up to three procedures, this means that last week alone, South Africans helped us to potentially save more than 52 000 lives,” said an ecstatic Silungile Mlambo, chief marketing officer for the South African National Blood Service (SANBS).
On the day, SANBS joined the global community in celebrating World Blood Donor Day with the theme: “Be there for someone else. Give blood. Share life”.
Every year, this event encourages healthy people to donate blood by highlighting the need to maintain a stable supply of blood and blood products.
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“We are over the moon that our amazing cohort of regular volunteers, plus an influx of new donors and those who hadn’t donated in a long time, came to donate in their thousands.
“This led to us exceeding our donation target by a massive 15 per cent,” said Silungile.
“It’s the most that have been ‘bled’ in South Africa on World Blood Donor Day since 2012, which gives us a huge boost in our mission to save and enhance lives.”
Silungile added that donations for the week exceeded last year’s tally by almost 2 000, including a marked increase from race and age groups that have previously been under-represented when it comes to blood donation.
“We are especially encouraged by the fact that during Youth Month, 34 per cent of the blood donated last week came from people under the age of 30,” Silungile said.
The surge in donations last week coincided with another international blood donation initiative – the #MissingType campaign.
During this campaign companies and individuals were asked to remove the letters A, B and O (symbolising the blood types with the same letters) from their logos and social media handles for a week to raise awareness of the need for new blood donors.
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Organisations across the country that took part in the #MissingType campaign included Wimpy, Outsurance, Netcare and many others.
Celebrities and blood donation champions such as ProVerb, Miss South Africa Tamaryn Green, Chris Forrest, Dr Sandile Kubheka, Mzokoloko Gumede and Christopher Jaftha also added their voices to the campaign.
Visit www.sanbs.org.za or call 0800 11 90 31 to find out where your nearest blood donor centre is.
Join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook using the handle @theSANBS and @thesanbs on Instagram.
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