The annual blood donation exercise organized by MTN Ghana Foundation, dubbed ‘Save a Life" campaign, has taken place in Ho in the Volta region Tuesday.

This year’s exercise which was the sixth  in a series forms part of an annual programme instituted by the telecom company to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Volta Regional MTN Sales Manager, Raymond Tibson in an interview said the initiative was as a response to a call by the National Blood Center to have the general public donate blood to it.

The Center, he said needs about 250,000 pints of blood annually but often end up getting only 66 percent resulting in a deficit of 34 %.

As a company that is interested in the welfare of Ghanaians, MTN Foundation volunteered to hold this programme to help shore up the deficit.

Mr Tibson was impressed with the exercise held in Volta region describing it as "very successful." He said they are looking forward to next year when more residents would take part in the programme.

The Foundation's target for the exercise was to collect about 2017 pints of blood from all the ten regions in the country.

The man in charge of the Center at the Volta Regional hospital, Vincent Yegbey lamented about the lack of some basic facilities to aid the programme.

He called for support from corporate institutions and individuals to ensure the Center has enough blood to save lives in the country.