More than 200 people -- mostly university students -- went to the Beijing Red Cross Blood Center on Monday, World Blood Donor Day, to make a donation.

"Compared with other countries in the world, China also falls behind when it comes to volunteerism and the need to increase the scientific awareness of the importance of voluntary donations," said Vice Minister of Health Ma Xiaowei.

In some Western nations, payments for blood are forbidden. In 39 countries, all blood collected for use by hospitals is donated, with networks of individual donors who have given hundreds of liters over their lifetimes.

More than 80 million units of blood are donated every year worldwide, but only 38 percent of blood is collected in developing countries, where 82 percent of the world's population lives, according to the World Health Organization.

"I can guarantee our facilities are clean and advanced," said Gao Guojing, director of the Beijing Red Cross Blood Center. But the lack of volunteer donors is the center's biggest headache.

The Beijing Blood Donation Office reports that the number-time of voluntary unpaid blood donors was just 110,000 in the January-September period of 2003.

Evidence from around the world demonstrates that voluntary unpaid blood donors are the foundation of a safe blood supply: they are associated with significantly lower levels of infections that can be transmitted by transfusion, including HIV and hepatitis. The safest donations, say World Blood Donor Day organizers, come from the safest donors

Ma encouraged people, especially the young, to consider donating as a civic responsibility. The right to vote comes at 18, and so does the right to save lives by giving blood.

"It is a sign of maturity," said Wu Yuchang, a student at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. "We want to help others."

Cancer patient Qin Xiyao, 59, said: "I've been sick for a long time and you can't imagine how much I appreciate the people whose blood is running in my veins," he said, "I used to be a donor and I would still be one if I could."

World Blood Donor Day is sponsored by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the International Federation of Blood Donor Organizations, the International Society of Blood Transfusion and the World Health Organization. It is designed to thank the volunteers who donate their blood and to bolster awareness of the importance of giving blood.

China's Regulation on Blood Donation came into effect on October 1, 1998. It encourages healthy citizens in the 18-to-55 age group to donate blood, and says that employers should encourage and organize their employees to do so. Donors receive certificates entitling them to transfusions in return.

(China Daily June 15, 2004)