CAIRO - Egypt comes third in the global rankings in terms of illegal organ trafficking. Only China and Pakistan have a bigger problem with such trafficking. Specialists have been calling on the ministries and research centres concerned to draw up a strategy to stop this illegal practice. Meanwhile, the controversy continues in the medical community over the draft organ transplant law that was submitted to the Egyptian Parliament in the last session, before it was dissolved. Since then, it has been decided to establish Egypt's first organ transplant school, to be affiliated to el-Mansoura University. Dr Abdou Hamid Abaza, Assistant Minister for Political Affairs, notes that the organ transplant law will help stop illegal human organ trafficking, as it will regulate transplant operations. The law will be carried out in two stages. The first stage is concerned with organ transplants from living donors, in order to overcome human trafficking. The second stage will concentrate on raising awareness about the need to donate organs. As for evaluating the hospitals and medical centres where the transplants will be performed, Dr Abaza noted that they must meet 15 conditions, while they should have operating theatres, laboratories and X-ray units. According to Abaza, any hospital or medical centre that doesn't meet the conditions will be forbidden from performing such transplants, adding that doctors and hospital managers who break this law could be sentenced to death. “The State will subsidise the treatment, which will be entirely free for poor patients being treated at governmental hospitals,” he explains. Dr Abaza told Al-Ahaly opposition newspaper that a co-operation accord has been signed with Italy, an advanced country with wide experience with organ transplants, in order to train doctors in this field, as well as other medical staff, responsible for patients in intensive care. Dr Hamdi el-Sayyed, Chairman of the Doctors' Association, notes that an article in the new law stipulates that any medical facility must get the approval of both the Ministry of Health and the Association before performing organ transplants. “A committee chaired by the Minister will decide whether to grant any medical facility the licence it needs,” he stresses, adding that the licence only lasts one year, after which it must be renewed. Professor of the Digestive System Dr Adel el-Rakib says that there is an urgent need to issue the above law. “I think it's been delayed for financial reasons, as organ transplant surgery is very expensive,” he says, stressing the importance for communication between the donor and the medical centres, to ensure that the donor is physically fit for the operation. Dr Maged el-Sherbini, head of the Scientific Research Academy, welcomes the law, adding that only 7 per cent of patients who suffer from kidney failure actually get a new kidney. He believes that the solution is to allow the transplantation of organs from cadavers. Hafez Abu Seda, head of the Egyptian Organisation of the Human Rights, hopes that the new law will put an end to illegal trafficking and the exploitation of poor patients.
