Brazzaville, 14 June 2010 -- WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo, has called on the youth in the Region to heed the humanitarian call to donate blood in order to save lives of patients in need.

By heeding this call, he said, the youth of Africa will be bringing “new blood” to the world and contributing to ameliorating a public health problem which affects mainly children un-der five years of age and young mothers.

The focus of World Blood Donor Day 2010 is on Young Donors with the slogan “new blood for the world.”

The Regional Director said: “The future of every nation depends on the capacity of its youth to take over from the older generations, the responsibility to sustain, strengthen and improve interventions for a better and healthier life for its population. In this context, it is of paramount importance to recruit and retain young voluntary non-remunerated blood do-nors, with the hope that this new generation of enthusiastic and motivated blood donors will form a pool that provides the safest possible blood for use in health facilities wherever and whenever it is needed”.

He added that regular blood donation also helps to promote safe and healthy lifestyles among the youth.

Dr Sambo described blood donor recruitment as a dynamic process because donors either retired at the stipulated age or stopped donating blood for various reasons, saying that in order to maintain and improve present achievements and ensure a sustainable and safe blood supply, there was a need to recruit and retain as many young blood donors as possible.

Africa scored a first in 1989 when a Zimbabwean blood donor of school age suggested that it would be a noble idea for the youth to pledge to donate blood 25 times by their 25th birth-day. This marked the birth of “Club 25” whose enormous success in ensuring a safe blood supply even in high-risk populations, has made it one of the milestones in the history of blood transfusion. This success story was soon embraced by many countries within and out-side the Africa and “Club 25” has now become a worldwide movement bringing together not only the safest blood donors pledging to donate blood but also people who have pledged to live healthy lifestyles.

Out of an estimated average of 3.5 million units of blood collected every year in the WHO African Region, only 60% to 67% comes from voluntary blood donors. The Regional strategy for blood safety adopted in 2001 recommended the collection of at least 80% of blood from voluntary donors by 2012. Less than half of the 46 Member States have achieved this target.

For more information, please contact:

Technical Contact: Dr. Jean Pierre Tapko – Tel + 47 241 39250 – E-mail : tapkoj [at] afro.who.int

Media Contact: Samuel Ajibola – Tel : +47 241 39378 – E-mail: ajibolas [at] afro.who.int