Hanoi (VNA) –Vietnam collected 1.336 million blood units in 2018, of which 98.3 percent weredonated by volunteer donors who account for only 1.68 percent of the nation’spopulation, heard a conference held by the National Steering Committee forVoluntary Blood Donation in Hanoi on March 12.

Nguyen Thi Xuan Thu,President of the Vietnam Red Cross Central Committee and deputy head of thenational steering committee, said that the volume of blood received in 2018 was11.5 times higher than that of 1994.

The national blood donation mobilisation network has been formed. To date, allprovinces and cities have set up steering committees for the work at theprovincial, municipal, and district levels.

Many activities havebeen organised and produced positive results, including the Red Springfestival, the Red Sunday programme, and the Red Journey campaign.

Communicationcampaigns on blood donation have been intensified, contributing to increasingpublic awareness of voluntary blood donation, Thu added.

Deputy Director of theNational Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion Pham Tuan Duong saidthat the strong development of annual voluntary blood donation campaigns hasmade great contributions to the growth of the country’s blood transfusionsector, as well as the modern health sector.

At the conference, thenational steering committee granted certificates of merit to 35 collectives forgreat contributions to blood donation campaigns.–VNA