14 June is celebrated as World Blood Donor Day. The theme of this year’s campaign is: ‘Thank you for saving my life‘.

Key Messages:

This year’s campaign has the following objectives:

• thank blood donors for their life-saving donations;
• promote regular voluntary unpaid blood donation;
• create wider public awareness of the need for regular donation because of the short shelf-life of blood components and to encourage existing and potential donors to donate blood at regular intervals
• focus attention on donor health and the quality of donor care as critical factors in building donor commitment and a willingness to donate regularly; and
• persuade ministries of health to show their appreciation of regular voluntary unpaid donors and provide adequate resources to provide quality donor care.

It focuses on thanking blood donors who save lives every day through their blood donations and strongly encourages more people all over the world to donate blood voluntarily and regularly with the slogan “Give freely, give often. Blood donation matters.”

Useful Links:

Link to the campaign page:

http://who.int/campaigns/world-blood-donor-day/2015/en/

Link to Event announcement regarding World Blood Donor Day:

http://who.int/campaigns/world-blood-donor-day/2015/event/en/

Link to fact sheet on blood safety and availability (updated June 2014):

http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs279/en/

Link to World Blood Donor Day 2015 posters ‘Thank you for saving my life’:

http://who.int/campaigns/world-blood-donor-day/2015/wbdd-posters/en/

Link to World Blood Donor Day 2015 visuals- logos for t-shirts/mugs/key chains, etc.:

http://who.int/campaigns/world-blood-donor-day/2015/wbdd-visuals/en/