Indian women do not voluntarily donate blood based on several misconceptions and can look up to their counterparts from 13 countries worldwide where they outnumber men in percentage of voluntary donors.
Indian women have the company of their counterparts from Islamic Republic of Iran in staying away from voluntarily donating blood when the need arises, going by the statistics collected by the World Health Organisation in June 2011. Out of the total number of donations in India, 94 per cent came from men, while 6 per cent women came forward to donate compared to 6.6 per cent of Iranian women.
The 13 countries where women outnumber men in blood donation include Zimbabwe (54.9 per cent); Thailand (51.6 pc); Swaziland (57 pc); Republic of Moldova (71 pc); Portugal (50.5 pc); Mongolia (54.6 per cent); Micronesia (78 pc); Georgia (57.2 pc); Gabon (75 pc); New Zealand (51.6 pc); United States of America (50.1 pc); Estonia (52.5 pc); and Azerbaijan (59.8 pc). Among the other nations where women come close to men include Australia (49.9 pc); Armenia (44.2 pc); Belgium (43.7 pc); Botswana (43 pc); Finland (49.3 pc); France (46.6 pc); Ireland (41.1 pc); Luxumberg (49.6 pc); Namibia (48 pc); Switzerland (40.2 pc); United Kingdom (49 pc); and Vietnam (48.9 pc).
Indian youth seem to have taken the World Health Organisation's advice in the right spirit and out of the total number of donors, 52.83 per cent are in the age group of 18 to 24 years, 23.38 per cent of them were in the 25 to 44 years age group, while 18.78 per cent donors came from the 45 to 64 years age group.
Indian youth are among the 11 nations where youth have shown the way – the nations are: Burkina Faso, Camaroon, Central African Republic, Eritrea, Jordan, Malawi, Mongolia, Tuvalu, Vietnam and Zambia.
