Over 50 organ transplants carried out across country in 1-day

Over 50 organ transplants were carried out across the country today to generate awareness about organ donation as part of a week-long celebration to mark Indian Organ Donation Week.
"We tied up with 42 hospitals across the country as part of our campaign to create awareness about organ donation. This is the first time so many transplants have taken place in a co-ordinated manner," Director, National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), Dr Vimal Bhandari said.
A total of 43 kidney transplant and 8 liver transplants were carried out today. Two of these transplants were from deceased donors and rest were from live donors.

As many 22 hospitals from Delhi NCR participated in this campaign, including AIIMS, Safdarjung Hospital, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital,Army Research and Referral Hospital, Indraprastha Apollo, Artemis, Medanta, Fortis (Shalimar), Fortis (Vasant Kunj), Max (Saket), Max (Patparganj).
Apart from Delhi NCR, 18 hospitals across 13 states and one Union Territory too took part.
There is a huge gap between the demand and supply of organs for transplant. As per government data, every year two lakh patients are added to the waiting list for kidney donation while only 60,000-70,000 are able to receive a kidney.

Similarly, annual requirement for liver transplants is at 25,000-30,000 livers but only about 2,000 livers are transplanted every year.

The gap gets wider for heart transplants where 50,000 transplants are required every year but only 100 transplants are achieved.
An important agenda before NOTTO is also to promote deceased organ donation, where most often the donor is a victim of a road accident.
India's deceased donor rate is at 0.3 per million population, whereas for a country like Spain the deceased donor rate is at 35 per million population.
Indian Organ Donation Day will be celebrated this year on November 30.