Guangdong to publish organ procurement agencies

GUANGZHOU - South China's Guangdong Province is establishing organ procurement organizations (OPO) and is to publish names of those organizations and their services before October, local health authorities said on Saturday.

Department of Health of Guangdong said that 80 medical personnel will receive training and become coordinators working at the newly established OPOs.

Zhang Wei, an official of the department said as Guangdong has a large demand for organ transplants, the province will create several OPOs.

Information of organs collected by OPOs will be recorded in the OPOs system, and hospitals in the province would be given priorities to obtain the organs, Zhang said.

National Health and Family Planning Commission issued a new rule to prevent human intervention and ensure fairness and transparency in human organ distribution on August, and the rule took effect on September1.

The rule stipulated that organs shall be obtained by OPOs authorized by provincial health authorities, and distribution of the organs must be done through the China Organ Transplant Response System (www.cot.org.cn).

OPOs will input clinical data of donors and organs into the system, and strictly follow directives regarding organ distribution automatically given by the system and ensure all transplantable organs are traceable, according to the rule.

No institution, organization or individual may distribute donated human organs without going through the system.