World Blood Donor Day | Delhi man Kiran Verma on mission to cover 21,000 km across India to create awareness of blood donation

World Blood Donor Day: Delhi man Kiran Verma on mission to cover 21,000 km across India to create awareness of blood donation

This is the second World Blood Donor Day on the road for activist Kiran Verma. This year, with a placard on his hand that urges people to donate blood, Mr. Verma is on his way to Siliguri, West Bengal's picturesque gem nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, from Malda. His aim is to walk 21,000 km to create more awareness about blood donation.

"We cannot be complacent about this. Every day more than 12,000 people fail to get blood in India due to which more than three million people died. During the second wave of COVID-19, this reality hit home even harder as almost every person went through plasma crisis. The fear to donate blood must be tackled immediately," Mr. Verma said over the phone from a highway dhaba en route Siliguri, where he halted for dinner.

Mr. Verma said he decided to dedicate a couple of years of his life to reset the idea that Indians do not have a culture of donating blood. He began his current journey on December 28, 2021 in Thiruvananthapuram. In 2018 too, Mr. Verma travelled 16,000 km across India, covering more than 6,000 km on foot, to get people to donate blood.

"India needs 15 million units of blood annually, according to 2017 government data. There is no official data after that. It also states that annually, India manages to get 10-11 million units of blood. So, here I am walking, hoping to catch the attention of that five million people who will make a huge difference between life and death," said Mr. Verma.

His story goes thus: On December 2016, Mr. Verma donated blood after being told that a poor family from Raipur was in dire need of it. After donating blood, he went to meet the family and got to know that the person who called him took ₹1,500 for the blood that he donated for free.

"I was gutted. I could not forget how desperate that family was. So, I started Simply Blood. My aim is simple: nobody should die because of lack of blood in India," Mr. Verma added.

According to Mr. Verma, Simply Blood, a virtual blood donation platform that connects blood donors and seekers real time without charging anyone, was launched on January 29, 2017, and it has saved more than 35,000 potential lives through blood donation so far.