Agartala: Tripura has maintained its position among Indian states as the leader in voluntary blood donation for the eighth consecutive year.
Addressing a function to mark the World Blood Donor Day, Tripura Health Minister Badal Choudhury said at Agartala on June 14 that 97 percent of the total requirement of blood during the last financial year (2015-2016) was collected through voluntary donation. “If we use clean blood, we would be able to check contagious diseases and such efforts would also save precious lives,” he added.
According to National Aids Control Organisation (NACO), only six states – Tripura, Tamil Nadu, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana – have the distinction of over 95 percent blood collection through voluntary donation against the national average of around 70 per cent.
In his address, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, who has donated blood six times so far, said around 29,000 people including security personnel and women, have donated blood through 765 blood donation camps across the northeastern Indian state in last final year, reports northeasttoday.in.
Noting that voluntary blood donation movement became a festival in Tripura, he urged young people and women to generously donate blood to save lives. Sarkar said that the Tripura Blood Transfusion Council has targeted to make voluntary blood donations by 35,000 people this fiscal.
“If five percent of the state’s population donated blood voluntarily, then we would not only be number one state in India in voluntary blood donations, we would be able to supply blood to blood deficient states,” he said.
World Blood Donor Day has been celebrated annually across the world since 2004 to observe the birthday anniversary of Nobel Laureate American scientist Karl Landsteiner, who discovered blood grouping in 1900.
According to NACO, in India, the daily requirement for blood is 39,000 units on an average. As against the annual approximate requirement of 13 million units of blood, the average collection provides only 9 million units.