It is indeed my great pleasure and privilege to join the rest of the world on the occasion of celebrating the 5th World Blood Donor Day. The observation of this year's WBDD is organized under the theme ‘Achieving 100 percent Voluntary non remunerated Blood Donation' on the 14th of June 2009.
While celebrating and acknowledging the contribution of the voluntary blood donors to the "gift of life", let us always remember that an increase in the number of people who give blood voluntarily on a regular basis is the only means of ensuring universal access to safe blood by every patient who requires blood transfusion. This is not only because voluntary non remunerated blood donors are the only source that can ensure sustained and predictable availability of safe blood to all segments of the society, they also ensure ownership and support by the community for a health service that is beneficial to them in accordance with the PHC strategy.
The need for sustained availability of safe blood in our countries cannot be overemphasized. The demand for blood in the WHO African region is driven by the fact that we have the highest maternal mortality rates of up to 1000/100,000 live births in the world; up to 40% of these maternal deaths are attributed to bleeding. It is estimated that 90% of the one million annual deaths globally due to malaria occur in our region and, in some parts, up to 7.5% of these deaths are due to severe malarial anemia. Other diseases and medical conditions that require blood transfusion in the course of their management like sickle cell anemia are also prevalent in our region. In addition high rates of road traffic accidents and other forms of injury contribute to the demand for blood.
While the need for donated blood in the Region is high, countries face challenges in selecting donors at reduced risk of infection due to the high prevalence of diseases transmitted through blood transfusion including HIV, Hepatitis B and C, malaria, HTLV and syphilis some of which diseases also require blood transfusion in the course of their management. The WHO African region adopted a regional strategy on blood safety in 2001 designed to address the adequacy as well as the safety of the blood. Since the adoption of this strategy a lot of progress has been made in the areas of policy formulation, strategic planning and implementation, with particular emphasis on blood donor recruitment and collection, testing of blood against diseases known to be transmissible through blood transfusion as well as clinical blood usage.
One of the targets in the strategy is for each Member State to collect at least 80% of their blood from voluntary non remunerated blood donors by 2012. More than 50% of the Member States have already achieved this target while 12 of the 46 countries collect all their blood from voluntary blood donors. Over 3.2 million units of blood is collected in the region but this still falls short of the requirement of about 8 million units per annum. Extra efforts need to be made to increase the number of units collected.
Daunting as the challenges of attaining the target of 100% voluntary blood donation may appear, they are not insurmountable. Furthermore, the long term cost of collecting blood from unsafe donors far outweighs the cost of whatever investment is made in achieving this important target. I would therefore urge Member States to strengthen their blood transfusion services further to improve not only on the quantity of blood collected but also to ensure that the collections are from voluntary non-remunerated blood donors as an important intervention in strengthening health care delivery systems.
I would like to congratulate countries which have already achieved the ultimate target of 100 percent Voluntary non remunerated blood donation and thank all voluntary blood donors without whom this would not have been possible. I would also like to urge all healthy individuals to donate blood voluntarily so that more lives can be saved.
Finally, I wish you all wonderful and memorable celebrations for the world blood donor day 2009.
Thank you