SANBS and Sunflower Fund link up
If you meet the requirements, please consider donating blood.
JUNE is Blood Donor Month and blood drives will take place nationwide this month as the South African National Blood Service (SANBS) joins a global campaign to recruit donors. A unit of blood can save up to three lives as it is separated into red blood cells, plasma and platelets.
Vanessa Raju, spokesman for SANBS, said that the Sunflower Fund is keen to use the campaign to boost awareness of the donation of stem cells for people who have leukaemia. “Many people don’t know it takes only two test tubes of blood to join the registry, and bone marrow is not surgically removed if you are a donor match for a leukaemia patient,” said Ms Raju.
Among those in need of transfusions are women who haemorrhage because of pregnancy or gynaecological complications, children with severe anaemia, accident victims and surgical and cancer patients.
If you are between 18 and 45, weigh more than 50kg with a body mass index of less than 35 and have no history of sexually transmitted diseases, you can be a bone marrow stem cell donor. For more information contact The Sunflower Fund at 080 0121082. To find out more about World Blood Donor Month, go to www.sanbs.org.za or call 080 0119031.
