Thursday August 18, 09:03 AM[align=right]
Plea for minorities to donate blood Britain's ethnic minority communities have been urged to give blood after new research revealed a low level of donations from these groups. [/align] The National Blood Service (NBS) said that 1.6 million people in Britain gave blood last year. But only 3% of these were from Asian, African and African/Caribbean communities.
A survey of 1,750 people also found that ethnic minorities were almost six times less likely to know their own blood type compared to the population as a whole. Only 7% of people from ethnic minorities said they knew their own blood type, compared to 41% nationally.
The NBS has launched the Are You My Type? campaign to recruit more blood donors from ethnic minority groups.
It is a key concern because a number of blood types are more common and specific to people from some ethnic backgrounds.
Blood group B is more commonly found in black African/Caribbean populations, while U negative - a rare sub group - is only found in these communities. A quarter of Asians are blood group B, compared to just 8% of western Europeans.
The research found that just 5.4% of people of Pakistani origin and 5.6% from Caribbean backgrounds knew their blood type.
A larger proportion - 11.1% - of African people knew their blood type, but it was still far behind the UK average of 41%.
Rakesh Vasishtha, NBS national communications manager, said: "We are working hard to communicate to people the importance of blood and in particular to create more ethnic diversity amongst blood donors.
"It's vital that we get our message across to everyone within ethnic communities that donating blood is quick, safe, easy and could save a life."

I have tried many time to donate blood even when I was in primary school I always told that I can't donate ...
Even here in Spain I am not allowed because I have lived in UK for the past 7 years, forthe case of MAD COW disease

To be honest with you I don't even know my blood type I get to find out