As many as 5,000 volunteers together with 150 artists and singers in Vietnam will take part in the first cross-country trip on July 7-27 to encourage local residents to donate blood for the health sector. Participants to the “Red Journey” will travel to 35 cities and provinces nationwide to call for blood donation and raise public awareness about inherited autosomal recessive blood disorders (Thalassemia). During the journey, blood donation days will take place in 15 cities and provinces, expecting to collect 12,000 blood units as part of a “summer blood donation” campaign” that aims to ease blood scarcity amid rising demand in the summer. The journey will start in the southernmost province of Ca Mau and end in the capital city of Hanoi. The National Steering Committee of Voluntary Blood Donation in Vietnam sets a target to collect more than one million units of blood in 2013, rising by 9.65% from a year earlier. (vov.vn July 3)