Posted by Haagen P. Cumlet

To help promote voluntary blood donation, the World Blood Donor Day, June 14, has become a national event in Bangladesh with parades and meetings in the capital of Dhaka and a number of other cities around the country, organized by the government and several organizations, including Rotary International.And more and more Rotary Clubs are getting involved in voluntary blood donor drives. 

Rotary International in Bangladesh has manifested itself as a driving force in promoting voluntary blood donation. "More and more clubs are organizing voluntary blood donation, more or less on a regular basis ... with ... Rotary and Rotaract emerging as a major supply group," Ahmed Farooque, chair of District 3280 HIV/AIDS Initiative and Charter President ofRotary Club Dhaka Kawran Bazar,tells www.ourblooddrive.org.

 

Spearheaded by the Rotary Club of Dhaka (of which Ahmed Farooque then was a member), a nationwide Safe Blood campaign among young people was launched in 1999-2000, in association with the Christian Commission for Development in Bangladesh (CCDB), technically supported by the Red Crescent Society and partnered by a number of NGO's, (non-governmental organizations), youth and student organizations.The program was officially adopted by the district the following year.

 

"The project succeeded in creating the momentum, a shift from the previously casual approach to a sustainable program based on monitoring and banking concept (donor guaranteed to receive blood for medical purposes on demand)," says Ahmed Farooque.

 

The promoting of blood safety through voluntary blood donation is an important component of the HIV/AIDS agenda, which the Rotary initiative partners together with the government, UNAIDS (United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS), UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) and other NGO's and local bodies. 

 

  ***************************************************************************

 

  • Rotary Club of Dilkusha in Dakha, capital of Bangladesh, has since its foundation in 1995 been organizing blood donation drives in various parts of the country and for the last seven years in a row won the award as the most effective blood collector among the 15-20 clubs, which now participate in the blood donor drives in District 3280. "We got the idea after seeing that there was a lack of pure blood for patients", PP Yousuf A. R. Khan, 2007-08 chair of the club's Blood Donor Committee, tells www.ourblooddrive.org.

 

  • The Dilkusha club's statistics show a drastic increase in the amount of collected donor blood: From 1300 units of blood in 2000-01 to 1800 units in 2006-07.

 

  • The Dilkusha club's goal for 2007-08 is 2000 units of blood. The drives are usually organized in collaboration with the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society.

 

  • Rotary Club Dhaka Kawran Bazar (chartered 2005) has included voluntary blood donations as a regular program. The club maintains a group of 33 registered donors (some are club members) and provides blood to the Red Crescent Society on an on-call basis as well as through blood donation camps.
  •  During the Rotary Year of 2007-08 seven poor children suffering from the thalassemia blood disease will receive their entire yearlyblood requirement on a regular basis, including the cost of screening and transfusion (medicine included), thanks to RC Dhaka Kawran Bazar. 

 

************************************************************************* 

 

A government blood safety program - Safe Blood TransfusionProgramme - got offtheground in Bangladesh in the early 2000's and has been supported byWHO, the World Health Organization, since 2004.

 

98 blood donor transfusion centres have been established throughout the country by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and with the financialassistance of UNDP (United Nation's Development Programme).In 2007, the government announced that a National Blood Centre would be created to coordinate all activity withregard to safe blood transfusion in accordance with WHO strategy.

 

Screening facilities, however, are far from satisfactory, and awarenessregarding screened blood is very low, says Ahmed Farooque, chair of District 3280 HIV/AIDS Initiative. He does believe, however, that the "focus at grass-root level continues" on the issue of safe donor blood.

 

Some 350.000 - 400.000 units of blood are needed per year in the country of estimated 148 million people.

 

Only 35 percent of the national blood supply for medical transfusion is available from voluntary blood donors. Concerns remain about professional blood donors who sell blood for money.

 

To help promote voluntary blood donation, the World Blood Donor Day, June 14, has become a national event in Bangladesh with parades and meetings in the capital of Dhaka and a number of other cities around the country, organized by the Safe Blood Transfusion Programme of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Red Crescent Blood Centre and leading voluntary organizations, including Sandhani, Badhan, the Quantum Foundation and Rotary International.

  

 Dr. Duangvadee Sungkhobol, the WHO Representative to Bangladesh, told an audience in Dhaka at the 2007 Blood Donor Day event that "voluntary blood donor organizations should come forward and take the leadership to increase safe an unpaid voluntary blood donation".

 

Rotary District 3280 HIV/AIDS Initiative will continue to do just that:The program chair, Ahmed Farooque, is now planning a technical seminar on "Rational use of blood in blood transfusion" targeting doctors, Rotary leadership andmainstream voluntary blood donor groups. The reason is: "Since lots of myths, misconceptions andignorance about fresh blood vs. stored blood, whole blood vs. blood component, religionsensitivity for not blood letting by Muslim during the fasting month etc. are widely prevalent in the society."

 

Editor's footnote: Clich here for Bangladesh at a glance, general information.