World Blood Donor Day: Safe blood for saving mothers - 14 JUNE 2014
The focus of this year's World Blood Donor Day campaign is "Safe blood for saving mothers". Every day, about 800 women die from pregnancy or childbirth-related complications. Severe bleeding during delivery and after childbirth is a major cause of mortality, morbidity and long-term disability. The goal of the campaign is to increase awareness about why timely access to safe blood and blood products is essential for all countries as part of a comprehensive approach to prevent maternal deaths.
- More than 4.5 million patients need blood transfusions each year in the U.S. and Canada.
- 500,000: the number of Americans who donated blood in the days following the September 11 attacks.
- Red blood cells live about 120 days in the circulatory system.
- Four main red blood cell types: A, B, AB and O. Each can be positive or negative for the Rh factor. AB is the universal recipient; O negative is the universal donor of red blood cells.
- 94 percent of blood donors are registered voters.
- Healthy adults who are at least 17 years old, and at least 110 pounds may donate about a pint of blood—the most common form of donation—every 56 days, or every two months, depending on iron levels. Females receive 53 percent of blood transfusions; males receive 47 percent.
- About 1 in 7 people entering a hospital need blood.
- Around 107 million units of blood donations are collected globally every year. Nearly 50% of these blood donations are collected in high-income countries, home to 15% of the world’s population.
- Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood.
- More than 41,000 blood donations are needed every day.
- A total of 30 million blood components are transfused each year in the U.S.