TEHRAN- Ali Akbar Pourfathollah, head of the Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization, said on Saturday that about 2.5 million people, making up around three percent of the entire population, donated their blood over the last Iranian year, ISNA reported.

About 500,000 of those donors are the regular volunteers who donate their blood twice a year, he said.
Pourfathollah who was speaking on the occasion of the World Blood Donor Day, held on June 14 , pointed to the theme of this year’s campaign: ""Thank you for saving my life” and added that Iran is also going to observe the day in cooperation with blood transfusion organizations and NGOs across the country.
“With an aging population, blood consumption will increase on one hand, and the number of blood donors will decrease on the other. Therefore, investment on the youths born from March 21, 1994 and later comes to be more important than ever,” he concluded.
Youths aged 18 to 22 are the healthiest group age for blood donation, according to Pourfathollah, because they have all received the Hematite B Vaccine during birth.