Thank you for saving my life!

Today is World Blood Donor Day

Happy World Blood Donor Day Everyone! World Blood Donor Day 2015 is a global celebration. The theme of this year’s campaign, which is being hosted in China, is: ‘Thank you for saving my life’.

It focuses on thanking blood donors who save lives every day through their blood donations and strongly encourages more people all over the world to donate blood voluntarily and regularly with the slogan:

“Give freely, give often. Blood donation matters.”

The campaign aims to highlight stories from people whose lives have been saved through blood donation, as a way of motivating regular blood donors to continue giving blood and people in good health who have never given blood to begin doing so.

Why is World Blood Donor Day celebrated on 14 June each year?

This is because it is Karl Landsteiner’s birthday. He was born in 1868 and first distinguished the main blood groups in 1900. Lansteiner developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the blood, and having identified, with Alexander S. Wiener, the Rhesus factor, in 1937, thus enabling physicians to transfuse blood without endangering the patient′s life. We all owe Lansteiner a huge debt of gratitude.

Blood grouping saves many lives – please know your blood group this ‪#‎WorldBloodDonorDay2015‬

To blood donors around the world –

Happy World Blood Donor Day!