“This year, more than ever, we need all donors because, due to the pandemic, universities and companies that until now organised blood collections, cannot do so and mobile units cannot circulate”, recalls the president of FEPODABES, Alberto Mota, quoted in a statement.

However, he adds, "it is possible to donate blood at the Blood and Transplantation Centres in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra, hospital services with blood collection and at the collections organised by associations of benevolent blood donors".

To appeal to the donation, FEPODABES will also promote an awareness campaign in several locations, starting on 30 July, at Praia da Vieira (Leiria), and passing by Costa de Caparica (4 and 17 August), Peniche (13 and 17 August), Foz do Arelho (11 and 18 August) and Almeirim (12 August).

“Every two seconds someone needs a blood transfusion and every day a thousand units of blood are needed in Portugal”, remembers FEPODABES, stressing that everyone can donate blood “in good health, with healthy lifestyle habits, weight equal to or greater than 50 kg and age between 18 and 65 years”.

World Blood Donor Day was instituted by the World Health Organisation in May 2005. The choice of the date of the event aims to honour Karl Landsteiner, an American physician and biologist, of Austrian origin, who was a precursor to blood transfusion and awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology / Medicine in 1930, for the classification of blood groups.