Safe blood for all

Marked every year on 14 June, the event serves to thank voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood and also to raise awareness of the need for regular blood donations to ensure that all individuals and communities have access to affordable and timely supplies of safe and quality-assured blood and blood products, as an integral part of universal health coverage and a key component of effective health systems.

The theme of this year’s campaign is blood donation and universal access to safe blood transfusion, as a component of achieving universal health coverage. The slogan “Safe blood for all” aims to raise awareness of the universal need for safe blood in the delivery of health care and the crucial roles that voluntary donations play in achieving the goal of universal health coverage.  The theme strongly encourages more people all over the world to become blood donors and donate blood regularly – actions which are key to building a strong foundation of sustainable national blood supplies that are sufficient to meeting the needs of all patients requiring transfusion.

The day and the theme is also a call to action to all governments, national health authorities and national blood services to provide adequate resources and put in place systems and infrastructures to increase collection of blood from voluntary, regular unpaid blood donors; to provide quality donor care; to promote and implement appropriate clinical use of blood, and to set up systems for the oversight and surveillance on the whole chain of blood transfusion.

The objectives of this year’s campaign are:

• to celebrate and thank individuals who donate blood and to encourage those who have not yet donated blood to start donating;
• to highlight the need for committed, year-round blood donation, to maintain adequate supplies and achieve universal and timely access to safe blood transfusion;
• to focus attention on donor health and the quality of donor care as critical factors in building donor commitment and a willingness to donate regularly;
• to demonstrate the need for universal access to safe blood transfusion and provide advocacy on its role in the provision of effective health care and in achieving the goal of universal health coverage;
• to mobilize support at national, regional and global levels among governments and development partners to invest in, strengthen and sustain national blood programmes.