April 17th was World Hemophilia Day, and despite the many challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the bleeding disorders community once again demonstrated its resilience by coming together virtually to celebrate the theme of “Adapting to change: sustaining care in a new world”. Landmarks around the world took part in the Light it up Red campaign. Virtual events were held around the world by different groups. Hundreds of stories were shared and thousands of people read those stories on the World Hemophilia Day website. In short, the global bleeding disorders community truly came together once again in a moving show of solidarity.
“None of this would have been possible without the amazing awareness campaigns, events and messages of our national member organizations (NMOs), fellow hemophilia organizations, and corporate partners,” says Cesar Garrido, WFH President. “On behalf of everyone at the WFH, thank you all for making this World Hemophilia Day a very special one.” To watch Cesar Garrido’s thank you video to the community, please click on the YouTube video image above.
On April 17, there were posts and comments coming in all day on the WFH Facebook page, LinkedIn page and Twitter timeline. Our World Hemophilia Day website also hosted hundreds of stories and comments, and 8,000 people read those stories and connected with the community.
A record 100+ landmarks around the world were lit up in red, and people around the world took pictures of those landmarks. You can see a small selection of those images below, and you can click here to see the full collection. Do you have your own picture of a landmark lit up in red? Feel free to add it to the collection here!
The WFH held its first ever World Hemophilia Day fundraising campaign, which gave our global family the opportunity to take action on this important day and support our efforts to bring our vision of Treatment for All to life. These funds will allow us to continue delivering training and guidance to support advocacy efforts and provide us with the flexibility to quickly respond to the needs of our community as they evolve. It’s not too late to contribute to the World Hemophilia Day campaign: you can still make a gift here.
The World Hemophilia Day microsite—worldhemophiliaday.org—is still up, so if you want to read motivating stories or watch inspiring videos made by the members of our community, just click here.
The WFH would like to thank our 2021 World Hemophilia Day sponsors for their continued support: Bayer
BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., Biotest, CSL Behring, F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd., GC Pharma, Grifols, Kedrion, LFB S.A, Novo Nordisk, Octapharma, Pfizer, Precision Biologic, Sanofi Genzyme, Sobi, Spark Therapeutics, Takeda, uniQure.