More than 700 blood units were collected from different parts of the country as part of the World Blood Donor Day in Rwanda.

The annual event, that falls on June 14, serves to thank voluntary blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood and to raise awareness of the need for regular blood donations to ensure the quality, safety and availability of blood and blood products for patients in need.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the theme of this year’s World Blood Donor Day is "Blood connects us all’ sought to highlight the dimension of "sharing” and "connection” between blood donors and patients as well as expressing gratitude to blood donors.

In Rwanda, the Ministry of Health opted to mark the day through a blood donation campaign.

The drive run from May through June in different parts of the country with an aim to mobilise the general public to regularly donate blood and call on people in good health who have never given blood, particularly young people, to begin doing so.

Key events included; mass mobilisation and blood collection in; Kigali Car-Free Zone where 231 blood units were collected; in Rubavu, Nyabihu and Musanze districts where 151 blood units were collected; in Karongi town where 106 blood units were collected, and in Rusizi (Kamembe, CIMERWA and Shangi sites) where 244 blood units were collected.

In total, blood collected during the World Blood Donor Day celebration campaign totals 732 units.

Dr Swaibu Gatare, the Division Manager of the National Centre for Blood Transfussion (NCBT), in an interview with The New Times, yesterday, said they chose to go for outreach campaigns because they expose them to bigger audiences and hence greater blood yields.

He said, it is also a way of doing more while spending less adding that this approach will continue.

"The biggest part of our activities is donor funded and some donors are withdrawing. We have to improvise cheaper means. The essence of the celebrations is to acknowledge blood donors and mobilise new donors, which we did at a little cost and yet achieved more,” he said.

Gatare also said that, with time, people have come to embrace blood donation. He cites an example of various institutions like MTN, Bank of Kigali, Indian Association in Rwanda, among others, that asked NCBT to come and collect blood from their workers.

According to Dr Thomas Muyombo, the head of blood donor recruitment and retention at NCBT, the hospital satisfaction has gone up, from 78 per cent last year to 87 per cent, this year.

Among other successes registered this year, NCBT got 28 new machines for blood component separation from the Belgian Transfusion Service and the NCBT staff received training on how to use them. The machines are now in the Kigali component production laboratory.

In addition, from May 31 to June 3, Rwanda hosted the 8th Biennial Africa Society of Blood Transfusion (AfSBT) congress for the first time, which focused on sustainability of national blood services and programmes.

Throughout 2015, 53,439 blood units were collected from voluntary donors.

These blood units were collected from 523 donation sites established by NCBT countrywide. The centre screens all blood donations for the following transfusion-transmissible infections: HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and Syphilis.

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