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Feature: Honored blood donors awarded in Bulgaria

Xinhua, June 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

A dozen voluntary blood donors were awarded honorary plaques here on Friday at a touching ceremony held on the occasion of the upcoming World Blood Donor Day on June 14.

"We have gathered here to say a big thank you to these people," Hristo Grigorov, President of the Bulgarian Red Cross, said while together with Dr Nikolay Andreev, head of the National Center of Transfusion Haematology. The two handed out plaques with the inscription "With gratitude for the humane gesture to donate blood and save lives."

A total of 169,481 Bulgarians donated blood last year, Andreev said. One-quarter of them were volunteers, while the others donated blood to their relatives and friends who urgently needed it, or sold their blood to people in need, he said.

Over the past 15 years, the share of voluntary blood donors has remained unchanged, Andreev said.

"In order to have normal health care, we should have 50 to 55 volunteers per 1000 population as it is in Europe, while in Bulgaria the number is from 20 to 23," Grigorov told Xinhua.

The worthy Bulgarians who were honored on Friday were from various regions of the country, ages and professions.

Stanimir Gulev, a 35-year-old from Plovdiv, has so far donated blood 70 times; Ivan Pandarski, 56-year-old from Sofia, donated blood 44 times; or Delca Zaprianova, a 48-year-old from Haskovo, donated blood more than 50 times.

Tanya Hadzhidimitrova, 48, from Yambol, was also among those awarded. A mother of three children, she donated blood more than 50 times. All of her three children became voluntary blood donors, she said at the ceremony. "Young people need to realize that donating blood is a cause, part of the contemporary value system," Hadzhidimitrova said.

Margarita Ivancheva, 64-year-old from Vratsa, received the most applause. She donated blood more than 165 times.

Ivancheva donated blood for the first time when she was 21, and her brother had fallen ill with nephritis, she told Xinhua.

"I feel great. It is something very personal, very special; something you really need to try, to understand what it is."

World Blood Donor Day serves to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and to thank voluntary unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gift. Endit