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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Serbia to continue with traditional voluntary blood donation

Belgrade, 14 June 2006

On the occasion of June 14, World Blood Donor Day, Serbian State Secretary of Health Nevena Karanovic called for the humane tradition of voluntary blood donation to continue in Serbia and that more young people should take part in it.

Author: FoNet

At an event organised by the Serbian Blood Transfusion Institute and the Red Cross of Serbia and Belgrade, Karanovic stressed that the campaign for collecting blood should not take place only today but every day of the year, as well.

She said it is vital that donated blood is safe and that it can be guaranteed that it is not infected.

Karanovic recalled that in the past several years the Serbian Ministry of Health, together with the European Agency for Reconstruction, has actively participated in the implementation of the project to reorganise the National Blood Transfusion Service and that the draft law on blood transfusion is underway.

"It is most important that thanks to this project, the three largest institutions in Serbia got state-of-the-art equipment and that their facilities were reconstructed", said Karanovic, adding that the Blood Transfusion Service in Nis got a new building.

Director of the Blood Transfusion Institute Snezana Draskovic recalled that around 80 million blood units are collected in the world each year, out of which 250,000 units are collected in Serbia.

She explained that Serbia participates with 0.25% in the total amount of collected blood worldwide, which is much less than in wealthy countries that donate up to 40%, although as much as two-thirds of world population lives in undeveloped countries.

President of the Serbian Red Cross Dragan Radovanovic said that Serbia should have 4% of blood donors for the size of its population, but currently it has 3.2%.

Radovanovic said that the future of transfusion is in providing sufficient, gratuitous and anonymous blood donation because that is the safest way to secure safe blood.