Organ transplantation

Organ transplantation

Subject: Governance

Context: The Covid-19 pandemic has dealt a body blow to organ transplantation and aggravated the existing gap between patients awaiting transplants and organ availability

Concept:

• Organ donation means giving part of the body (organ) to a person with end stage organ disease who needs a transplant.
• The organs that can be donated for transplantation include kidney, liver, heart, lungs, and small bowel and tissues such as corneas, heart valves, skin and bone. Tissue means a group of cells performing a particular function in the human body such as bone, skin, cornea of the eye, heart valve, blood vessels, nerves and tendon etc.

Legal Framework:

• Organ Transplantation and Donation is permitted by law, and covered under the “Transplantation of Human Organs Act 1994”, which has allowed organ donation by live & Brain-stem Dead donors.
• In 2011, amendment of the Act also brought in donation of human tissues, thereby calling the Amended Act “Transplantation of Human Organs & Tissues Act 2011”.
• The Government of India has also started a National Organ and Transplant Program (NOTP), under which patients below the poverty line are supported for the cost of transplant as well as cost of immunosuppression after transplant for one year.

Concerns

• The main source of organ availability was from victims of road accidents. But with the Covid lockdown road traffic has dropped and that has meant fewer accidents and non-availability of organs for transplanting.
• Patients are unwilling to accept organs from other donors due to concerns about possible Covid infection.
• Government data says annually around 1.8 lakh persons suffer from renal failure but only 6,000 renal transplants are done. About 2 lakh die of liver failure or liver cancer – 10-15 per cent of them could be saved with a timely liver transplant. Similarly, about 50,000 persons suffer from heart failures but only about 10 to 15 heart transplants are performed every year