Newmai News Network
Imphal: One Kiran Verma from Delhi on a mission to cover 21,000 km across India to create awareness of the importance of blood donation reached Imphal, the capital of Manipur, on Friday.
The social worker started his walk from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala on December 28, 2021, and covered 17,800 km passing through various states of the country to reach Imphal.
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“My motto is that nobody should die waiting for blood in India,” Verma said while calling upon people to donate blood to save lives.
Addressing reporters at the Manipur Press Club upon his arrival in Imphal, he said his only mission for the walk was to spread awareness about the importance of blood donation among people while asserting that lakhs of people die in India while waiting for blood.
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He expressed concern on learning that there are only five blood banks across Manipur and 12 out of 16 districts of the state have no blood bank.
He is quite concerned about the inconveniences that would have been faced in the state due to the small number of blood banks. As such, he drew the attention of the authorities to develop adequate infrastructure to address this particular issue.
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The social worker said that to date he had covered 17,800 km and the main purpose behind his walk is that every day more than 12,000 people die in India waiting for blood.
India needs around five million new blood donors to donate blood so that blood banks and hospitals do not run dry on blood and his mission is aimed at encouraging people to donate blood.
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Kiran also said that blood is a very common commodity and the only problem is that it cannot be manufactured in any company or factory.
“That is the reason I go, walk and talk with people to make sure that every part of India should get enough blood,” he said.
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“I wanted to appeal to all the people of Manipur to come forward and donate blood to save lives,” he said while asserting that his mission is to end any kind of death due to lack of blood in India after December 31, 2025.
He said that India needs 15 million units of blood annually, according to 2017 government data and India manages to get 10-11 million units of blood annually.
Kiran further said that due to COVID-19, voluntary blood donation in India has gone significantly down in the last three years.
Kiran Verma hopes to catch the attention of those five million people who will make a huge difference between life and death.
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Kiran Varma who started his organization “Simply Blood” said his walk is the longest blood donation awareness campaign ever by an individual in the world, which will run for more than two years.
He claimed that he has received very good responses from people in the places he visited while expressing hope that he will achieve the target of catching the attention of five million people to donate blood.
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