Tripura among states leading in voluntary blood dotion: Minister

Agartala, June 14: Tripura has maintained its position among Indian states leading in voluntary blood dotion for eight consecutive years now, state Health Minister Badal Choudhury said here on Tuesday.

“Of the total requirement of blood during the last fincial year (2015-16), over 97 per cent was collected through voluntary dotion. We have targeted to make it 100 per cent,” he said while addressing a function held to mark World Blood Donor Day.

“If we use clean blood, we would be able to check contagious diseases and such efforts would also save precious lives,” he said.

According to tiol Aids Control Organisation (CO), only six states - Tripura, Tamil du, Aruchal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Harya - have the distinction of over 95 percent blood collection through voluntary dotion against the tiol average of around 70 per cent.

In his address, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, who has himself doted blood six times so far, said around 29,000 people including a large number of security personnel and women, have doted blood through 765 blood dotion camps across the state in last fiscal.

Noting the voluntary blood dotion movement became a festival in Tripura, he urged young people and women to generously dote blood to save lives. Sarkar said that the Tripura Blood Transfusion Council has targeted to make voluntary blood dotions by 35,000 people this fiscal.

“If five percent of the state’s population doted blood voluntarily, then we would not only be number one state in India in voluntary blood dotions, we would be able to supply blood to blood deficient states,” he said.

Noting that since 2006, “around 70 pairs of eyes were deposited by voluntary donors and some of these were successfully implanted in a large number of people, who can now see the world”, he said that the state wished “to become number one in the country in voluntary eye dotion too”.

World Blood Donor Day has been celebrated annually across the world since 2004 to celebrate the birthday anniversary of Nobel Laureate American scientist Karl Landsteiner, who discovered blood grouping in 1900. This year’s World Blood Donor Day’s theme is “Blood connects us all”.

According to CO, in India, the daily requirement for blood is 39,000 units on an average. As against the annual approximate requirement of 130 lakh units of blood, the average collection provides only 90 lakh units. (IANS)