TEHRAN – Organ donation in the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21, 2021) has increased so far by 66 percent compared to the same period in the previous year, Katayoun Najafizadeh, Director of Iranian Organ Donation Association, has stated.

Since the beginning of this year, 446 organs have been donated across the country, which shows a 66 percent increase compared to last year (with 269 cases), she further noted, IRNA reported on Thursday.

Due to the prevalence of the coronavirus pandemic, organ donation decreased by 53 percent last year compared to a year before, while it is still short by 22 percent compared to 574 cases of organ donation before the outbreak, she said.

Pointing to the upward trend of organ donation in Iran, she noted that the organ donation rate in Iran has increased from 0.2 in 1998 to 10.9 in 2021.

She referred to the survival of more than 65,000 Iranians by organ transplants, emphasizing that it has saved a considerable amount of foreign exchange due to the localization of organ transplantation and efficient forces.

Some 14,000 people in the country are waiting for organ transplants, 7 to 10 of whom die every day due to the lack of a transplanted organ, Mehdi Shadnoush, head of the transplant management and treatment center of the Ministry of Health, said.

In Iran, the organ donation rate reached 14.7 two years ago, which was the highest rate in the long run. But the ideal point is the organ donation of 26 brain dead patients per a million population, he noted.

According to the Iranian Society of Organ Donation, there are two types of death in the medical world; Heart death (common death), which accounts for 99 percent of deaths worldwide, and brain death, which accounts for one percent of deaths.

Organ donation is an altruistic decision that can be made by the family members after brain death. Although many organizations and medical centers have implemented various interventions and training courses to increase satisfaction with organ donation, a lack of organs for donation still is a serious problem in the world.

In Iran, about 5,000 to 8,000 people die each year from brain death, half of whom, or about 3,000, have transplanted organs. Unfortunately, 1,000 families, or one-third, are satisfied with organ donation.

Top in Asia

Shadnoush announced in June 2020 that Iran was ranked first for organ donation among Asian countries.

 “The country’s organ donation rate is 14.34 per one million people,” he noted.

In February 2019, Shadnoush said that the organ donation rate has increased by 60 times over the past 18 years. Although Iran ranks 26 in organ donation in the world.

Organ donation of brain death has reached up to 60 percent, he said, lamenting that the country ranks 21st regarding organ donation from brain dead patients in the world while ranking 14th regarding organ transplant from alive patients.

According to the figures revealed by the International Registry in Organ Donation and Transplantation (IRODaT), Spain leads the world in organ donation.

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