Facebook said that more than 100 million people around the world have signed up for the blood donation feature on Facebook, which allows users to sign up for notifications from nearby blood banks about donation opportunities on the occasion of World Blood Donor Day. Facebook is expanding this feature to Tunisia.
Facebook reported that in the first two months after launching the service in the United States in June 2019, the proportion of first-time blood donors on partner sites increased by 19% thanks to the blood donation feature, and in Brazil and India, the proportion of blood bank donors who said they were affected by a notification on Facebook to donate increased. With blood from 0% to 14% in the first year.
Since launching the blood donation feature for the first time in India in 2017, we have expanded to 37 countries including Egypt where we launched the blood donation feature last year in partnership with the Egyptian Ministry of Health and the National Blood Transfusion Services. Today, this feature is launched in Tunisia in partnership with the Ministry of Health.
We introduced a way for users to discover nearby blood donation events through the blood donation feature. Now blood donation centers can share donation opportunities through Facebook events, making them easily visible to people who have signed up to receive blood donation notifications, users can confirm their attendance at donation events, the company said
In celebration of World Blood Donor Day - launched by the World Health Organization to thank blood donors and raise awareness of the need to donate blood regularly - I hosted the Global Blood Donor Forum with our partners on June 10th.
Global health leaders, blood donor experts, and young blood donor advocates from around the world come together to discuss innovative strategies to inspire young people to donate.