But the good thing is Indian girls are coming forward in number for the rescue. It is shameful that Indian men are still hiding in their houses.
Au contraire
Only 6% of blood donors are women
NEW DELHI: Indian women don't believe in donating blood.
According to the first ever data bank on gender distribution of blood donors, India has among the lowest number of female blood donors in the world. Compiled by the World Health Organisation, the data bank says that of the 4.6 million donations in 2008, only 6% donations were by women. The rest 94% were male donors.
There were only 13 countries including India among the 100 countries which reported low percentage – less than 10 -- of women blood donors. In this group of 13 countries, the percentage of female donations ranged from as low as 0 in Somalia to 8.8 in Mali.
An analysis of the WHO data reveals that 70% of all blood donations globally are collected from male donors.
Just 25 countries collect more than 40% of their blood supplies from female donors. They include Australia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Swaziland, Thailand, USA and Zimbabwe.
Speaking to TOI, Dr Kabita Chatterjee, head of the blood bank department of AIIMS, said, "There is very low awareness about blood donation in India. People still believe that women will become weak and anaemic if they donate blood. People should know that anybody aged 18-65 years can donate blood. A healthy person can donate blood once every three months."
Meanwhile, the data bank has also looked at the age distribution of blood donors. In India, those in the age group of 18-24 years donated the most amount of blood. Around 53% of all donations were made by those in this age group followed by those in the age group of 25-44 years who made 29% of the donations. Around 19% of the donations were made by those aged 45-65.
WHO said that in richer countries, donors tended to be older (over 44). In low and middle income countries, they were younger (under 25).
Seventy-seven countries provided data on distribution of blood donations by age group. In high income countries, only 27% of donations were from the under-25 age group, while 40% of donations were collected from donors older than 44 years old.
In low and middle-income countries, almost half (45%) of all donations came from people under 25, and 18% from the over-44 age group.
According to the latest data, in 70 countries, voluntary unpaid blood donations rose by more than 10% between 2007 and 2008.
Significantly, India reported the sharpest increase in the number of voluntary unpaid blood donations -- from 3.6 million to 4.6 million – in just one year.
"In 2007, India reported a total 6 million donations of which 3.6 million were voluntary donors and the rest family donations. This increased to 7.4 million donations in 2008 of which 4.6 million were voluntary donations. This is the highest increase in voluntary donations in one year," WHO officials told TOI from Geneva.
The number of countries collecting all their blood supplies from voluntary unpaid donors increased by more than 50% between 2002 and 2008.
"WHO's goal is for all countries to obtain all blood supplies from voluntary unpaid donations by 2020," says Dr Neelam Dhingra, coordinator, Blood Transfusion Safety, WHO.
"Nine years ago, 39 countries were obtaining all their blood supplies from voluntary unpaid donors: in 2008 that figure went up to 62," Dr Dhingra added.
Only 6% of blood donors are women - Times Of India
