Saturday 14 / June / 2025
Muscat: The Sultanate entered the Guinness World Records on Tuesday by recording the highest number of blood donors in eight hours through the National Blood Donation Initiative themed “Your Blood is a Life for the other”, the Ministry of Health announced.
The ministry said in a statement: “The number of donors registered in the campaign was 5,555 donors over eight hours, so the campaign set a new record in the Guinness Book of Records.” This number exceeded the previous number of blood donors registered in the Guinness World Records in India, which was 3,034.
The National Initiative was organised by the Fellowship Fund of the Ministry of Health’s Staff in collaboration with the Blood Donation Services Department in the Ministry of Health (MoH).
The results were announced on Tuesday at a ceremony held under the patronage of Dr. Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Saidi, Minister of Health at the Ministry of Tourism’s theater.
Arab world
Khalid bin Abdullah Al Mandhari, Director General of Administrative Affairs and Head of the National Blood Donation Initiative, pointed out in his speech that this initiative was the first-of-its-kind in the Arab world.
He added that the initiative aimed at involving the community members, as well as promoting the partnership concept between the government sector (the military and civil) and the private sector.
Ahmed Jamal Al Din Jabar, Arbitrator of the Guinness World Records, announced the total number of blood donors from the Governorates of Muscat, Dhofar, North and South Al-Batinah, Al-Dhakhiliyah, Al-Dhahira, Al-Buraimi, as well as North & South Al Sharqiyah.
Dr. Zainab Al Araimi, Director of the Blood Donation Services Department, pointed out that since the number of blood units in the MoH blood banks is about 60,000 units per year, the number that could be collected on the day of the event had been calculated so as to not exceed the weekly need for each blood bank participating in the initiative.
The number of donation commitments was specified according to the actual monthly need for each blood bank, in order to avoid wasting the blood collected during the donation commitment period (28 days).
Dr. Al Araimi also added that the most important challenges that were encountered were the lack of nursing staff in the blood banks to facilitate the collection process of a large number of donors. This issue has been discussed with the Directorate General of Nursing, where the Blood Donation Services Department trained a number of nurses to be part of the medical team during the blood collection, according to the rules followed by the Blood Bank.
