We all know what blood donation means and what blood is. We also know why is blood donated and who is in need of blood, but we don’t know some simple facts of blood and blood donation. Knowing some facts of blood donation might help us in saving someone’s life someday or even one of our relative one day. Let us see some facts of blood in our body and also some of facts related to blood donation.

 BLOOD FACTS IN OUR BODY

• Two million red blood cells die every second in our body
• 7% of human body weight is made up of blood. Wow!
• Kidneys in our body help to recycle around 400 gallons of blood in our body
• A normal healthy man has approx. 5.5 litres of blood in his body.
• RBC (Red blood cells) in our body live up to 120 days.
• Blood contains nutrients, hormones, red and white cellswaste products among other things.
• There are mainly 4 types of human blood. They are AB, A, B and O.
• There are some fun facts related to the blood type and the personality of a man as per his blood type.
• The Red colour of blood is because it contains iron.
• About 1 billion red blood cells are found in just 2 to 3 drops of whole blood
• Cows have 800 and more blood types while dogs have 4 blood types.
• It takes about 20 seconds to one minute for a drop of blood to travel from your heart to all of body and back to heart.
• There is no substitute for human blood anywhere else on earth.
• A newborn baby has blood of around 1 cup in his body.
• The roar we hear when we place a seashell  to our ear is not the ocean, but the sound of blood through the veins in the ear.
• The cornea of our eye does not have any blood supply from our body.
• The amount of blood in your body depends on your weight.

BLOOD DONATION FACTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

• Blood donation is needed for cancer, accidents, and surgery patients or for people who are suffering from disease or undergoing an operation.
• A patient undergoing heart surgery needs up to 6 units of Red blood cells, A cancer patient needs up to 8 platelets of blood transfusions per week regularly
• One blood donation can save up to 3 or 5 lives.
• People in need of blood can receive blood from Blood type O people. The people who have Blood Type O are called universal donors. They can give blood to any blood group people.
• 1 in 7 people in world need blood transfusion once in their lifetimes.
• Before donation, blood collected is collected, tested for its use.
• Average man has about 8 to 12 pints of blood in his body
• You can give blood donation every 3 months. It takes 3 months to donate your blood medically, because the RBC’s get replaced in 3 months.
• In India, the blood is preserved in blood bank for 35 days
• India needs about 8 million units of blood per year.
• Blood banks normally take about 350 ml of blood from a person’s body.
• It takes about only 20 minutes to give blood donation.
• Blood type is inherited like the eye colour in humans
• It is said that more than 38,000 of blood donations are needed every day in world.
• Less than 9% of world donates blood every year in the world.
• Most donated red blood cells must be used within 42 days of collection
• In the world of Blood donation, someone almost needs blood every 3 to 5 seconds.
• If you begin donating blood at the age of 18 and you donate after every three months, you can save 500 lives.
•  Every eight minutes, someone gives blood.
• Less than half the population is eligible to give blood.
• There are many types of blood donation namely: Whole blood donation, Plasma donation, platelet donation, automated donation and directed donation.
• Around 10 million volunteers donate blood each year, out of which  30 percent  are first time donors
• In India, blood donation programmes are held regularly by various NGO’s and government institutions. Now the social custom of having a blood donation campaign is prevalent at the time of passing away of a relative or an anniversary or a birthday
• Hospitals mostly request blood type O from blood banks. Only 7% people in India have blood group O negative.
• Need for blood will increase 5% each year
• Only 4% of the eligible population in India donates blood.
• There is shortage of blood in India of more than 40%
• Statistics prepared by the Association of Voluntary Blood Donors’ Forum (AVBDF) on the percentage of voluntary blood donation to the total blood collection in individual state show that Tripura has ranked first in the list with 95.3%. Blood donation.
  West Bengal, with 85.1% of blood donation. Punjab with 84.9%, while Maharashtra was with 84.8%. Tamil Nadu, 91.9% of blood donation respectively.
• In India, 94% of blood donors are males.
• As per recent statistics, In India, people in the age group of 18-24 years donated the most amount of blood of around 53% .Those in the age group of 25-44 years made 29% of the donations. Around 19% of the donations were made by those aged 45-65 only.
• India has 2 433 blood banks.
• Most people who are reluctant to donate blood have their own reasons like, they want to give blood to only their relatives, they are afraid that they may catch some infection from needles or fear pain of needles or they are never asked about donating blood or never thought of it. Some people also don’t donate blood because their family and peers have told them not to do so.