Every year, on 14 June, countries around the world celebrate World Blood Donor Day. The event serves to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products as well as to thank voluntary unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood. 
 The focus for this year’s campaign – the 10th anniversary of World Blood Donor Day – is on blood donation as a gift that saves lives. WHO encourages all countries to highlight stories from people whose lives have been saved through blood donation, as a way of motivating regular blood donors to continue giving blood and people in good health who have never given blood, particularly young people, to begin doing so.
 
 On this occasion, QSA clarified that the number of donors to HMC Blood Bank during 2012 amounted to 22.5 thousand, 82% of which are non-Qataris. The male donors rate reached 96.6% of the total number of donors. 
 
  Donors with blood groups (O+) and (A+) attained 41.7% and 25.4% respectively of the total donors number.