The National Blood Transfusion Service of Sri Lanka won first place among National Blood Transfusion Services in all developing countries. It won the ISBT Award for transfusion services among developing countries for 2012.

ISBT is the premier international professional society in blood transfusion and transplantation sciences and medicine, a Health Ministry spokesman said. An open announcement was made proclaiming the selection of the best transfusion service among developing countries at the ISBT Congress 2011 at Taipei, Taiwan, the spokesman said.

Applications were called through the official website of the ISBT and NBTS.

Sri Lanka also took part in the competition. Each competitor had to answer a structured essay type common questionnaire providing supportive evidence for all the answers given. In this competition, performance of 2009, 2010 and 2011 were evaluated covering all aspects that accounted for the improvements of the relevant transfusion service. NBTS, Sri Lanka being able to successfully prove its ability defeated all the other competitors and won the award.

The ISBT website has published the winner (Sri Lanka).

The award presentation ceremony was held on July 8 at the 23 rd International ISBT Congress in Cancun, Mexico, he said.

By Nadira GUNATILLEKE
Source: Daily News ( Sri Lanka)