U.S. Embassy - PMI Partner For National Blood Drive

Jakarta, April 12 (Antara) - The US Embassy Jakarta, the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI), and online movement Blood4Life will hold a "Blood4Nation" national blood drive in Indonesia, the embassy said on its official website on Friday. The "Blood4Nation" national blood drive will take place in Jakarta and six other cities around Indonesia on Saturday and Sunday, the embassy said. Ambassador Scot Marciel will launch the Blood4Nation campaign at the @america cultural center April 13, where the program will include a full day of music and entertainment. PMI will run all technical and medical aspects of the blood drive, and all of the donated blood goes to PMI to assist Indonesian patients in need. This is the second Blood4Nation blood drive hosted by the Embassy. The first, which took place in January 2012 at @america, raised 260 bags of blood for Indonesia. Building on last year`s success, this year`s Blood4Nation campaign includes Jakarta and six other cities: Pontianak, Yogyakarta, Medan, Malang, Makassar, and Bandung. Blood drives in these cities will take place at `American Corners` on the following college campuses: Institut Teknologi Bandung (Bandung), Universitas Hasanuddin (Makassar), Universitas Muhammadiyah (Malang), Universitas Sumatera Utara (Medan), Universitas Tanjungpura (Pontianak), and Universitas Gadjah Mada (Yogyakarta). PMI has a target to raise 4.8 million bags of blood per year, which is in accordance with World Health Organization (WHO) international standards. The WHO has set a standard for national bloodstock to be 2 percent of the national population. Indonesia raises approximately 3.5 million bags of blood annually, which leaves it 1.3 million bags short of its target. Based on statistics from 2012, last year PMI received blood from 1,371,638 donors, and about 41 percent were first-time donors. The goals for Blood4Nation are to raise awareness about the importance of donating blood, especially among youth, and help Indonesia get closer to reaching its annual bloodstock target.