Need for reliable registry of blood donors

A promotional video was launched by www.friends2support.org

Assistant Director of Drug Control Administration Ravi Udaya Bhaskar handing over a promotional video CD on voluntary blood donation to former Vice-Chancellor of Acharya Nagarjuna University V. Balamohandas in Visakhapatnam on Monday.

VISAKHAPATNAM: A reliable registry of voluntary blood donors is the need of the hour, which ensures pumping in of safe blood into the national pool of blood banks that is starved of unpaid donors.

Formally launching a promotional video CD of www.friends2support.org, at the VJF Press Club here on the occasion of World Blood Donors' Day, Assistant Director Drug Administration Ravi Udaya Bhaskar said that World Health Organisation had given the slogan ‘New Blood for the World' for this year's celebration, which was getting fulfilled through such registries.

Giving a call to various groups of employees and persons attached to medical fraternity and students to support the cause being espoused by the Friends To Support Organisation, he opined that unless large number of youth from the urban centres came forward to donate blood frequently, the large gap between need and supply could not be bridged. Currently only 30 to 40 per cent of the need was being met nationally, he observed.

Active support

Expressing concern over lack of zeal among some people and members of some NGOs in physically donating blood, while indulging in acquiring huge media publicity, he promised to actively support such awareness efforts to bring in large number of new donors.

Highlighting the need for donating blood on a regular basis, former Vice-Chancellor of Acharya Nagarjuna University V. Balamohandas reminded the gathering of a National record the university had set up by physically donating 2,041 units on a single day on the campus. Appreciating the appeal for helping fellow human beings in the 3-minute video `Donate Blood Save Life', he said one unit of blood these days was being segregated into components and saving three lives.

He recounted his association with the F2S since 2006 in Guntur, where this national initiative had begun.

Andhra Pradesh Law University Registrar A. Subrahmanyam recounted how an employee in their university had benefited from the database of the website in getting a donor of a rare blood group in Visakhapatnam a couple of months ago. The www.friends2support.org volunteers Harish, Deepak and others distributed `Blood Security-cum-Identity card' after the video was screened.