Japan¡¯s health ministry plans to have educational material on blood donation available for middle school students in fiscal 2025 in an attempt to raise awareness about the practice among the younger generation amid a dwindling population.

While one needs to be age 16 and above to donate blood, the ministry aims to introduce the topic earlier in class to encourage students to become future donors.

The move is among efforts by the government to reverse a declining number of young blood donors.

¡°We expect these events will feature middle and high school students actively involved in blood donation volunteer activities, sharing their experiences,¡± said Takaaki Harigai, a spokesperson for the health ministry¡¯s blood donation promotion section.

A contractor will be chosen this summer to run the awareness programs from fiscal 2025 onward.

While the ministry has been distributing educational material to high school students since fiscal 1990, this will be the first time the campaign is extended to middle school students.

They will be taught the basics of blood donation and student council activities and projects focused on promoting awareness will be introduced to them, according to the health ministry. The educational material will supplement information contained in textbooks currently in use, it said.

In Japan, the number of eligible blood donors is expected to decline in the future; currently, the majority of donors are in their 40s and 50s, Harigai said. The upper age limit for blood donors is 69 years.

¡°Once they reach the age where they can no longer donate, it would be futile to raise concerns then,¡± he said, emphasizing the need to have a pool of future donors in place now.

There were 5.01 million blood donors in fiscal 2022, with individuals age 40 to 69 accounting for roughly 70% of the total, at 3.34 million.

In fiscal 2022, blood donors age 16 to 39 made up just 5.3% of this segment of the population. The ministry aims to raise this rate to 6.7% by fiscal 2025.

While there has been an overall increase in both the volume of blood donated and the number of donors in recent years, there is a continuing decline among the younger age group. The number of donors age 16 to 39 decreased from 2.51 million in fiscal 2012 to 1.67 million in fiscal 2022, marking a decline of more than 30% over a decade.