People donate blood during the Red Spring Festival which opened in Hà Nội on Saturday. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The Red Spring Festival, the largest blood donation event in Việt Nam, began in Hà Nội on Saturday for the 15th year.

Director of the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion (NIHBT) Bạch Quốc Khánh, head of the festival organising board, said the event, held annually after the Lunar New Year festival, aims to ensure sufficient blood supply for medical use which, in the past, often faced a serious shortage after the country’s biggest and longest holiday.

First held in the spring of 2008, the festival has attracted hundreds of thousands of participants and received nearly 92,000 units so far. Most localities nationwide and many agencies, businesses and organisations have also organised annual blood donation drives during this occasion time.

This year’s festival in Hà Nội will last for nine days, until February 20, and is expected to attract 10,000 donors and receive about 7,000 blood units.

People can donate at the NIHBT headquarters on Phạm Văn Bách Street of Cầu Giấy District, the three fixed blood donation locations (No. 26 on Lương Ngọc Quyến Street, No. 132 on Quan Nhân Street, and No. 10 of Alley 122 on Láng Street), as well as the cultural centre in Gia Lâm District.

People can register to make donations via https://hienmau.vn/events/lehoixuanhong/ or the app “Hien mau”.

At the festival opening ceremony, Meta - the company running Facebook - and the NIHBT debuted the Blood Donations feature on this social network in Việt Nam. This feature will become operational on February 16, enabling donors to easily connect with blood reception facilities.

The entire nation is striving to mobilise 1.5 per cent of the population to donate 1.5 million blood units this year.

The widespread impact of COVID-19 in 2021 seriously affected donations. 

Throughout the year, close to 10,000 blood donation communications and mobilisation campaigns took place, attracting more than 1.5 million participants. More groups joined the donations, including military personnel, civil servants, Buddhist monks and nuns, and religious dignitaries.

As a result, more than 1.3 million blood units were collected nationwide, basically meeting first aid and treatment demand, particularly during COVID-19 outbreaks.

Nearly 20,000 blood units were sent to aid cities and provinces in the south as the fourth wave of the pandemic in Việt Nam began in April last year. — VNS