Facebook has announced that it is launching its blood donation feature for users within the United States. The firm said that blood banks in the country are seeing a decline in blood donors and now hopes that its measures can encourage people to start donating again.
The new feature begins rolling out today in Chicago, New York City, San Francisco Bay Area, Baltimore, and Washington D.C., it will then roll out across the whole country in the months after that. Facebook has partnered up with America’s Blood Centers, the American Red Cross, Inova, New York Blood Center, Rock River Valley Blood Center, Stanford Blood Center, Versiti, and Vitalant in order to deliver the service.
Discussing the development, Mitzy Edgecomb, vice president of marketing and communications at Vitalant, said:
“Tens of thousands of blood donors are needed each day across the US to transform the lives of patients requiring blood transfusions. Summer and winter are notoriously difficult times for collecting enough blood donations, but the need does not stop and can even rise due to increased travel, activity, adverse weather events and cold and flu season among other factors.”
In order to sign up, those in the supported areas can go to the Blood Donations section in the About section of their profile. When a blood center needs a donor, it can send out a notification to those nearby who can then voluntarily go and donate their blood. The feature is already available in Bangladesh, Brazil, India, and Pakistan where 35 million people have already signed up to be blood donors.