China combating organ donor graft
Print Edition
CHINA has zero tolerance for non-voluntary organ transplants and is fighting corruption in its fledgling donor system, a conference of surgeons from around the world was told yesterday.
Last year, China banned use of organs from executed prisoners in transplant procedures.
Authorities have cracked down on a black market in organ trafficking and stepped up public donor rates to help meet a huge demand for transplants.
Despite challenges with the corruption underlying illicit organ trade, China is working hard to improve the system and increase transparency, said Huang Jiefu, director of the China Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee.
“Since 2015, I can guarantee that in our system 100 percent are voluntary citizen donors,” Huang told reporters at the conference on organ donation attended by international experts, including some from the World Heath Organization.
“Because China is a big country with 1.3 billion people and regional development is uneven, occasional legal violations are unavoidable,” said Huang, while accepting corruption still existed in the system.
“But the Chinese government has zero tolerance for this kind of legal violation,” added the former deputy health minister, who is also a transplant surgeon.
China conducted about 11,000 organ transplants last year, the WHO has said.
To curb illicit organ trade, the government in 2007 banned transplants from living donors, except for spouses, blood relatives and step or adopted family members.
Global experts at the conference in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People praised China’s efforts to reform organ donations.
Dr Jose Nunez, an adviser on organ transplants to the WHO, told the conference that he believes China is building the “next great” system. “You are taking this country to a leading position within the transplantation world,” he said.
China has made undeniable reforms, said Philip O’Connell, a former president of The Transplantation Society, a non-government body based in Montreal.
“It’s been good to see that this debate is moving on beyond the first big issue, which was where were you getting your organs from,” he said.
It is now China’s responsibility to prove it is implementing the law, said Francis Delmonico, a surgery professor at Harvard Medical School, adding, “I am confident the government is committed to fulfil that ethical principle.”
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