China is bringing to an end the dreaded practice of using executed prisoners as a source for organ transplants from next year, which in the past was blamed for high rate of executions in the country.
From January 1, all the organs needed in transplants will come solely from voluntary donations from citizens, Huang Jiefu, former vice-minister of Health said at a seminar by China's Organ Procurement Organisation (OPO) held in Kunming.
Lack of organs caused delays in organ transplants.
Because of insufficient donations, executed prisoners became the main source of organs, he was quoted in the official media here as saying.
"Every year, around three lakh patients need organ transplants but only 10,000 surgeries are performed," Huang was quoted by the state-run China.Org as saying.
Executions remained the major sources of organ transplants in China, which according to the Amnesty International carries highest number of executions in the world every year.
In recent years, China has gradually brought down a number of crimes like the economic offences that warrants death sentences and the number of executions were expected to fall in future as a result.
Among the problems is the use of executed prisoners' organs, Huang said.
In China, about 65 per cent of transplanted organs are from the deceased, with executed prisoners the source of more than 90 per cent of them, he said.
According to relevant regulations issued in 1984, the prisoners' bodies can be used for organ transplant only under certain conditions, if no one collects the body, the criminal agrees or his family agrees to the medical use of the body.
He said Chinese people are much less willing to donate their organs after death compared to other countries, with the ratio being only 6 out of a million, Huang said.
"The ratio in Spain is 370 out of the same amount, which is almost 62 times that of China", he added.
Speaking of the reasons behind the low participation, Huang said Chinese traditions and the fairness of organ distribution are the top two concerns, with the latter being particularly important.
"Before 2007, more than 600 medical organisations could deal with organ transplants," Huang said, "Driven by financial benefits, many illegal acts happened and nonstandard surgeries were performed."
However, it is questionable whether the prisoners are making the agreement out of their own will and using their organs has become an unspoken rule to ease the demand in the market, the report said.
