Beijing: As the Chinese government announced the amendment of organ transplantation regulations in the 2021 legislation plan, China’s fast-forwarding organ transplantation development will see a further boost, said a top organ transplantation expert. Statistics shows that the number of organ donation volunteers at a national foundation has increased by over 45 percent since the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic.
More than 1.77 million people have been registered as an organ donation volunteer as of Friday at China Organ Transportation Development Foundation (COTDF), an institute supported by China’s National Health Commission to promote voluntary organ donation and equitable organ distribution in the country.
The number shows an increase of about 46.5 percent compared with the number at the end of 2019, despite the impact of the epidemic, according to a report released by COTDF at a conference held in Yan’an, Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.
It is also 100 times higher than at the beginning of 2015, when citizens’ voluntary organ donation after death officially became the only legal channel for organ transplantation in China.
Among all registered organ donation volunteers at the foundation, 54 percent were born in the 1990s and 7 percent were born in the 2000s.
The provinces with the most volunteers are South China’s Guangdong Province, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, Central China’s Henan Province and East China’s Shandong Province. With the increasing number of registered volunteers, the number of organ donations has also seen a generally upward trend within the last decade.
From 2015 to 2020, a total of 29,334 organs were successfully donated by Chinese citizens after death, according to the report.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
