Dr Catharina Boehme, Officer-in-Charge, WHO South-East Asia
Blood transfusion is a cornerstone of effective health care and emergency response. While more than 120 million blood donations are collected worldwide each year, most low-income and lower-middle-income countries fall short of the 1% to 2% population donation rate required for national needs. Blood cannot be manufactured or stored indefinitely, making a stable base of regular voluntary donors essential to ensuring a reliable supply and timely access—often the difference between life and death.
This year, World Blood Donor Day’s theme “One Drop of Humanity. Give Blood. Save Lives.” places solidarity at the heart of every donation. It reminds us that blood donation is more than a medical act. It is a visible expression of the collective care, responsibility and compassion that underpins our shared humanity.
To mark the day, WHO’s interactive Drop Your Drop initiative invites people everywhere to pledge to give blood, symbolically “adding their drop” to a growing global movement. Participants are encouraged to turn their promise into action by joining others to form a collective “drop” – a powerful symbol of unity, solidarity and life-saving impact.
Yet challenges remain. Demand for safe blood, and blood products such as lifesaving plasma-derived medicinal products, continues to exceed supply in several countries. Plasma not required for transfusion can be processed through fractionation into therapies such as immunoglobulins, albumin and clotting factors, which are essential for treating haemophilia, immune deficiencies, severe infections and other chronic conditions. A limited number of Member States have some capacity to produce plasma-derived medicinal products, although not sufficient to meet domestic demand. Regional consultations have highlighted the need to reduce plasma wastage, strengthen plasma recovery and enhance regional cooperation to improve equitable access to these therapies.
WHO calls on governments, health authorities, development partners, and communities to sustain and expand investment in safe, quality-assured and sustainable blood systems—to save lives, advance universal health coverage, and strengthen health systems. We urge young people to become the next generation of regular voluntary donors, to ensure that both routine health demands and the surge requirements of blood and blood products during emergencies and disasters can be met.
On World Blood Donor Day, we honour the contributions of voluntary donors, whose simple yet powerful act of generosity helps form a shared lifeline of solidarity, compassion and care that saves lives every day.The WHO South-East Asia Region has made important progress. All Member States have national blood policies, national guidelines, and nationally coordinated mechanisms to strengthen blood safety and availability. More than 80% of blood collected in the Region now comes from voluntary non-remunerated donors, —an increase of 127% between 2008 and 2018—the highest rate of increase recorded across all WHO regions. All donated blood is screened for transfusion-transmissible infections, and quality assurance systems—including licensing, external quality assessment and hemovigilance—continue to be strengthened. These achievements reflect the sustained commitment of governments, blood services professionals, communities and voluntary donors.