- The world-over, organ donations for the severely ill and needy people gets accentuated in the absence of timely supply and/or availability of suitable donors. Since the waiting list of receivers always outnumbers willing and eligible donors, there are any number of patients who have lost hopes and eventually lives as well for want of organ transplantation. This phenomenon is not only restricted to developing and least developed countries but also applicable to the most advanced and developed nations as well. Notwithstanding the mind-boggling advancements achieved in the field of medicine and science over the years, this particular aspect of organ donation and subsequent transplantation continues to pose unenviable challenges to humankind.
PC: Pfizer Medical Team
- The scenario in India is not different either. As is known, the inadequate healthcare infrastructure continues to be the bane despite successive governments making efforts to pump in the requisite funds to spruce up the system. Our inadequacy needs no further elaboration which was brutally exposed during the two successive novel coronavirus waves rendering our healthcare infrastructure clueless. Thus, less said the better about the scenario surrounding organ transplantation which is accessible to hardly few who can afford to shoulder the humongous costs involved.
- In populous and majorly unorganized sectors dotting the existential landscape, affordable organ transplantation for ordinary citizens is simply out of the question. Against this backdrop, comes the welcoming news that the groundbreaking procedure in the US in which a 57-year-old man too ill to be considered for a human heart received one from a genetically modified pig recently. This is being looked at as the key to a future in which no person on transplant lists dies for want of matching donors. For the uninitiated, the US leads the world in organ transplants and even there, supply is so short of demand that every day people die on the waiting lists.
PC: Lifestyle Desk
- Of course, the problem is much more acute in India wherein pre-pandemic 2019 deceased donors were only 0.52 per million inhabitants as compared to 6.86 globally and 36.07 in the US. Mind you, pigs’ organs have been known to be a promising match for humans for decades. You will be surprised that transplantation of a pig’s heart and lungs into a patient was performed in our very own Guwahati, Assam as far back as 1997. Sadly, it was deemed as an unauthorized operation, and doctors involved were arrested forcing the story to end without taking further wings. Who knows India would have emerged as a pioneering country in animal transplantation if the experience back then received support, assistance, and encouragement in the desired manner?
- The US could achieve the breakthrough largely owing to research funding resulting in critical scientific progress in gene editing. Pragmatically speaking, science is still far away from putting the transfer of living organs from other species within every patient’s reach. Where do we stand as a country on the subject matter? The only palpable approach for us is to dramatically scale up cadaveric donations and the infrastructure for their successful administration since we don’t lag too much in living kidney and liver donations. Hopefully, we also can scale up by substantial funding of healthcare infrastructure including the research to explore animal transplantation as an effective measure.
