During the month of March, we embarked on a campaign to register 400 new blood donors and offer free blood group testing at various venues to anyone, 16 years or older, who wanted to find out this valuable information.
Our marketing team was out and about at 12 shopping malls, two community events, and various other organisations during the month and managed to blood group over 400 people and register 156 potential new donors to blood donation clinics of their choice.
So, what does it mean to perform a blood group test? It is performed by a quick finger prick test and the blood is mixed with an antibody to determine the blood group. There are eight different blood types in the ABO blood group system. Your blood type is determined by the presence of small proteins on your red cells called antigens. For example, if you are blood group A, you have A proteins on your red cells, if you are blood group AB you have both A and B proteins on your red cells and people who are blood group O have neither A or B. The words “positive” or “negative” follow the ABO blood group and indicate whether or not there is a different protein on your red cells called RhD. You are “positive if you have RhD proteins on your red cells and “negative” if you don’t. If you would like to read more about blood groups and their compatibility feel free to click here.
Thank you to everybody who visited our blood group initiative. This is a great result, and we look forward to welcoming each and every one of you at one of our many blood donation centres in the near future.
