VIJAYAWADA: As part of its efforts to make organ donation more popular, the Appropriate Authority for Cadaver Transplantation (AACT) of Andhra Pradesh (Jeevandan) is organising a national symposium on organ donation with the theme ‘Leave a Legacy of Life’ on December 18.
It will be the culmination of a week-long State-wide awareness campaign beginning on December 11, said Dr. T. Ravi Raju, Chairman of the AACT and Vice-Chancellor of Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS).
Addressing mediapersons here on Friday, Mr. Ravi Raju said many lives could be saved if all the organs from brain dead individuals, who constituted nearly 20 percent of about 2 lakh persons dying in accidents every year, could be taken out. This is against the backdrop of the rate of organ donation teetering under one per cent. Certain apprehensions and beliefs about organ donation were a stumbling block for the Jeevandan programme.
Under Jeevandan, about 400 organs had been harvested from 50 cadavers and transplanted since its inception in the early 2015. “There is a waiting list for 279 kidneys, 23 livers and four hearts,” he said.
Mr. Ravi Raju said the organ transplantation programme in India was also hampered by the low availability of cadavers, unlike in some foreign countries where dead bodies were treated as State property.
Naval hospital
gets permission
Mr. Ravi Raju said the AACT had recently recognised INS Kalyani, the biggest naval hospital on the east coast at Visakhapatnam, as a Non-Transplant Organ Harvesting Centre (NTOHC). It earned the distinction as the first armed forces hospital to be given permission to harvest organs from brain dead individuals. It was preparing to take up transplantations also in the near future starting with kidneys.
