THE University of the West Indies, Campion College and Dinthill Technical will be among 30 entities, institutions, schools and individuals to receive awards for their contribution to blood donation today - World Blood Donor Day.

The ceremony, which will take place at the Ministry of Health on King Street in Kingston, while have Minister of Health Horace Dalley as the guest speaker, while Dr Ernest Pate, Pan-American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation representative in Jamaica, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, and Grace Allen-Young, permanent secretary in the ministry, will be in attendance.

Sandra Brown-Thomas, communication co-ordinator of the voluntary blood donor programme at the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS), told JIS News that apart from recognising the usually outstanding individual donors nominated by the island's eight blood collection centres, awards will be presented to corporate sponsors, schools, institutions as well as the uniformed groups, such as the Jamaica Defence Force.

GlaxoSmithKline, the US-based pharmaceutical giant, will be among the 10 sponsors and entities to be recognised, she said.
"The NBTS has an extremely good relationship with GlaxoSmithKline. They are actually our premier corporate sponsors at this point in time," added Brown-Thomas.

In the meantime, she said PAHO would be hosting its fourth annual blood collection drive at the Ministry of Health today.
"Traditionally, the drive targets all of the various organisations and institutions with whom PAHO has a connection and, of course, they will get a lot of support from corporate Jamaica," said Brown-Thomas.
The theme for World Blood Donor Day is 'Celebrating the gift of blood'.

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