World Blood Donor Day
Next: June 14, 2027
Thank you for the gift of blood.
The story
Where it comes from
World Blood Donor Day falls on 14 June, the birthday of Karl Landsteiner (1868–1943), the Austrian scientist who discovered the ABO blood groups in 1901 and won the Nobel Prize for it in 1930. The first day was held on 14 June 2004, organised by WHO with the Red Cross and Red Crescent federation and two international blood donor and transfusion bodies, to thank the people who give blood for free. On 23 May 2005 the World Health Assembly made it an annual event (resolution WHA58.13).
How it's celebrated
Blood services hold donation drives and thank-you events, and many honour their most loyal donors, some of whom have given blood hundreds of times. WHO uses the day to call for more regular, voluntary unpaid donors, so that safe blood is always there for patients. The simplest way to take part is to give blood for the first time, or to bring a friend along.
Did you know
- More than 70 countries marked the very first World Blood Donor Day in 2004.
- In 1937 Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener also identified the Rhesus factor, the 'positive' or 'negative' in a blood type.
- In Singapore every donor gives blood unpaid and of their own free will, and a donation draws 350 to 450 ml, about 8 to 12% of an adult's blood.
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