Every year more than 80 million units of blood are donated, but only 38% are collected in developing countries where 82% of the global population live. Few days ago Kyrgyzstan with the rest of the world marked the World Blood Donor Day. The event took place in front of the Opera and Ballet Theatre on Sovietskaya Street. In Kyrgyzstan the situation with donor blood is very problematic as its National Blood Donation program is inefficient. The government did not respond in a proper manner to problems in donation system that occurred after Soviet Union’s collapse. People used to donate more during soviet times than they are doing now. For instance, International News Safety Institute refers to IRIN’s article KYRGYZSTAN: Lack of healthy blood donors causing unnecessary deaths, where it says:

Maya Saifudinova, a Bishkek cleaner, used to give blood during the Soviet years. “Then we had pride in the health services and we wanted to help people,” she said. Now she is afraid that local nurses with low qualifications will give her some kind of infection and complains that donors today do not receive any remuneration.

“In 97 percent of cases, the donors are relatives of the patients. We are constantly in need of all types of blood groups and very short of the rare types. It’s even worse when we have to look for blood with rhesus negative. It’s a disaster because Asians rarely have this type of blood,” Sagynbek Abazbekov, NBC director, said. The centre pays those who give blood less than US $1 per session. “It’s a very small amount of money, but it’s all we can offer,” Abazbekov explained.

It is true that people show unwillingness to donate not only because of small or no remuneration, but because of fear to get some infections. However, certain advantages do exist to encourage people to donate. According to Kyrgyz law, people who have donated blood 45 times receive the title of “honorary donor” and are entitled to priority at state medical institutions, free public transportation and can buy drugs for half their normal price.

After having read the article from last year I compared the number of donors this year, I was pleasantly surprised to see the growing number of donors in Kyrgyzstan.

Over the past 15 years, the number of voluntary blood donors in the Central Asian republic has decreased more than five times, according to the National Blood Centre (NBC). In a country of 5 million people there are only 600 regular donors.

Here’s what 24.kg reports on this year’s donors situation:

The press service said that population aged 18-55 years old with high potential of blood donor is participating in the campaign. Approximate number of donors is 1.5 thousand people.

So, there is a chance that the number of donors will be increased over the years and save more lives as an extreme shortage of blood is having a negative impact on maternal mortality, especially in periphery hospitals throughout the country.