DOHA: The Declaration of Istanbul to protect the poor from transplant tourism and address trafficking of human organs and tissues is commemorating its fifth anniversary in Doha this weekend. Over 70 experts are taking part in the symposium that also celebrates the Doha Donation Accord and the increase in the number of registered donors here, which has almost doubled in the past year, reaching 4,500.
Dr Riadh Fadhil, Director of the Doha Donation Center, is among participants in the three-day event that concludes tomorrow. “In the last two years we have managed to develop a donor registry and a new infrastructure,” he stated at a press brief yesterday. Currently there are 47 patients waiting for a kidney transplant and 14 for a liver. The expert said that the Doha Donation Accord aims to combat human trafficking and prevent commercial transplantation abroad. H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser signed the consent for organ donation last year, giving a good example to citizens who responded by doubling the number of consents.
“Since November last year, nobody has gone abroad to get transplants. Before, Qataris wanted to go out of the country, now 90 percent want to do it here and very few go abroad,” he said. Meanwhile, there are approximately 500 patients in dialysis. Also at the event, Dr Jeremy Chapman, Chairman of the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group, said that “thousands of people live thanks to transplants; 24,000 had a liver transplant last year, and a total of 76,000 had transplants.”
On his part, Dr Francis Delmonico, President of The Transplantation Society (TTS), said: “With this declaration we took on an important mission to guarantee that people undergo transplantation properly and ethically and have the opportunity to recover. We are allies in this mission and it’s wonderful to come together to celebrate the accord,” he added.
Delmonico warned that one in every 300 living donors die and encouraged people to become donors, and talked about the benefits of organ donation from deceased patients. For Dr Luc Noel, World Health Organization (WHO) Coordinator for Clinical Procedures, “the change came when all of those that participate in a transplant process worked at changing and made this declaration a commitment to fight exploitation of the poor.”
The WHO representative considered that Qatar has made a commitment at the highest level and is playing an important role in the region. However, he highlighted that there’s still a need to work within the collaborative manner within the GCC.
The Director of Qatar Center for Organ Transplantation, Yousef Al Maslamani, explained that the Qatar ID card won’t feature holders as organ donors “for a few years, but this is a responsibility of the Ministry of Interior,” he clarified. The Symposium will review the progress in the implementation of the Doha Donation Accord as a model of the Declaration of Istanbul. Participants will also examine progress in implementing the Declaration and the WHO guideline rules, among other issues. The Peninsula
