There are many different blood types including A+, A-, AB-, AB+, B+, O, O-, O+. Depending on what blood type you are, you may give blood to other people with certain blood types and receive blood from other certain blood groups. For example, O+, may give to O+, A+, B+ and AB+. And, O+ may receive blood from O+ and O-.
Over 4.5 million patients in the U.S. and Canada need a blood transfusion every year. Every two seconds someone needs a blood transfusion to save their life. Leukemia victims need life-saving blood transfusions to replenish their inadequate blood supply in order that their vital organs receive enough oxygen and nutrients to support life. One pint of your blood separated into different components in a centrifuge may save the lives of up to three people.
Identifying the need to donate blood and acting upon that need, will help make your community a safer place in which to live, knowing that local hospitals are supplied with blood products should the need arise. Each time you give blood you will have your blood pressure checked, your temperature taken and your iron level checked for free. Your blood group will also be identified and recorded.
It takes around an hour to donate blood, which is just a small amount of time to take out of your busy schedule to do so much good for the community. You are the vital key to saving the lives of up to three people each time you choose to donate blood. This is a highly commendable act on behalf of fellow human beings, who, without your generous donation, may not survive.
If you visited the United Kingdom for three months or more between the years of 1980 and 1996, do not give blood. New policies adopted by the Red Cross prohibit the use of blood from this country due to the risk of "Mad Cow Disease" leading to the fatal human form of the disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). People are deterred from donating blood who have spent five or more years in any European country (except the UK) for a total of five years or more between 1980 and 1996. In addition, the Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (TSEAC) recommended that the FDA should defer any recipient of a blood transfusion in the UK since 1980.