Vice Minister of Health Huang Jiefu has recently revealed that the Organ Transplantation Committee (OTC) would transform into a state supervising agency in April and one of its working priorities is to strictly supervise living organ transplants.

OTC is an administrative and coordination firm set up by the State Council, China's cabinet, in 2006. Huang is the director of OTC.

In May last year, China enacted regulations on human organ transplants. However, a corresponding state supervision organization was not implemented.

The vice minister said most of the organ transplants at present are from dead bodies. The regulations passed are comparatively stricter on transplants from living persons as "such operations might exert more psychological pressure to the organ providers and receivers," noted Huang.

Nevertheless, the regulations do not completely rule out transplants from living donors, as in cases that involve relatives. However, the trade of organs from living donors has not completely stopped.

"So it is much imperative to set up a relevant state supervision department, especially taking into consideration the operative risk in living organ transplantation," said Huang.

He noted that the percentage of those who get sick after a transplant is 10-30 percent and the death rate is 0.1-0.2 percent, while rates for transplants from living donors is even higher.

(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, March 14, 2008)