On Tuesday, authorities revealed the details of the biggest illegal organ trafficking case in the country's history. In a statement, the Health Ministry and the Administrative Control Authority (ACA) announced the arrest of 45 suspects, including Egyptians and foreigners, for running an illegal organ trafficking network. The statement said the defendants, including university professors, doctors, nurses, medical centre owners and brokers, were involved in illegal organ trafficking. The statement added that the network was taking advantage of the current economic circumstances of low-income Egyptians who would sell their organs, and do so for cheap prices, allowing members of the ring to make fortunes. The ministry said the suspects include professors working in the faculties of medicine in both Cairo and Ain Shams universities and doctors working in Ahmed Maher Hospital, the National Institute of Urology and Nephrology and privately-owned labs. Ten medical centres and hospitals were raided according to a separate statement issued by the ACA. However, it did not release the names of the suspected centres or hospitals. The ministry said most of the hospitals and medical centres were in districts like Al-Haram in Giza governorate and that some were not licensed. Health Minister Ahmed Emad ordered an immediate shutdown of all centres and hospitals involved in the case. ACA said the ring had been under surveillance for months. It said it had been granted permission to monitor them by the prosecutor-general. “Months of intensive surveillance led to revealing everybody involved in the case. We also made sure we arrested all of the suspects at the same time,” the ACA said. Organ trafficking is explicitly forbidden in Egypt according to Article 60 of the country's 2014 Constitution. Egyptian law criminalises the trade of organs and penalises traffickers for up to seven years in jail. “Organ trafficking is forbidden and no medical or scientific experiment may be performed without the documented consent of the subject, according to the established principles of the medical field as regulated by law,” the constitution states. The study stated that despite there being no comparable data for Egypt, a considerable number of patients from neighbouring countries are believed to have undergone illegal organ transplants in Egypt. Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed told Al-Ahram Weekly that all doctors involved in the case have been suspended during the investigation. “The case has been referred to the prosecutor-general who received all the documents,” Megahed said. He added that all operations that used organ transplants were conducted in hospitals that do not have licences,” he said. The Doctors Syndicate also said doctors who are involved in organ trafficking may lose their licence if found guilty. “If the court finds these doctors guilty they will be banned from practising medicine for life according to the law, in addition to criminal charges which will put them in jail,” said Rashwan Shaaban, a Doctors Syndicate board member. Several parliament members submitted a memorandum to Speaker Ali Abdel-Aal to discuss new policies that work on combating organ trafficking. According to a study published in 2007 by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Egypt is among the top exporters of human kidneys, alongside China and Sri Lanka, in the last 10 years. MP Fayka Fahim said that Egypt is the third country in the world in organ trafficking after China and India and that it is time to move strongly against it. “There are many legal loopholes in the Egyptian law that traffickers are using. In addition there is no experience among the various authorities to fight illegal trafficking,” Fahim said. “I think the government with the help of parliament should establish a mechanism to make sure that we have a body with trained people that could make policies and take measures to combat this crime which is as dangerous as terrorism and drugs.”
