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2013 World Blood Donor Day

13 Jun 2013 | By INSERM (Newsroom) | International day

©Inserm / Claude Féo

The idea of a World Blood Donor Day was launched at the 58th session of the World Health Assembly, which includes all the members of the WHO (World Health Organization). On this occasion, the countries undertook to support volunteer blood donations that are given voluntarily, gratis and anonymously.

This World event will be held every 14 June. It was held for the first time in 2004 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Since then, World Blood Donor Day has been celebrated in more than 190 countries. This world event is hosted annually by one of them. After Argentina in 2011 and South Korea in 2012, France was designated as the host country for 2013.

The purpose of this annual celebration is to raise awareness and emphasise the importance of blood donations.

The global event was hosted this year by the Établissement Français du Sang (EFS) (Blood French Institute). The world event, held in Paris on 14 June 2013, is an event of exceptional important with more than 200 mobile blood donor units for the event, organised throughout metropolitan France as well as in Martinique, Guadeloupe and La Réunion.

The most recent work of Inserm researchers on this subject can be found at:
The surprising ability of blood stem cells to respond to emergencies – April 2013
First ever autotransfusion of red blood cells created using stem cells – September 2011

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