Ministry speaks on kidney sale claims

THE Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has distanced itself from claims by some daily publications that it condones the sale of human body parts like kidneys. The ministry says it has been misquoted.

Speaking to the ‘Daily News’ on Thursday, the Ministry’s spokesperson, Mr Nsachris Mwamwaja, said that there are currently no transplant services in the country and it was why there are no policies and regulations for it.

“The only services that health facilities offer in the country where a person can donate something from his body to another is blood and this is a free service,” he said.

Mr Mwamwaja said that there were some publications that were quoting the Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Seif Rashid, as having said that people were free to sell their kidneys since there was no policy guiding transplants in the country and no one would interfere where the donor was willing. He said that because there are no kidney transplant services being rendered in the country, patients in need of them have to travel abroad in places like India and even then, they are limited to donors who are family members.

In 1994, India passed the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, which banned both the sale of human organs and organ transplants between non-relatives. South Africa adopted the Human Tissue Act of 1983, which outlaws the transfer of tissue (including flesh), bone, organ, or bodily fluid in exchange for payment.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), illegal organ trade occurs when organs are removed from the body for the purpose of commercial transactions. The WHO justifies these actions by stating that, “Payment for...organs is likely to take unfair advantage of the poorest and most vulnerable groups, undermines altruistic donation and leads to profiteering and human trafficking.”

Despite these ordinances, it was estimated that five per cent of all organ recipients engaged in commercial organ transplant in 2005. Research indicates that illegal organ trade is on the rise, with a recent report by Global Financial Integrity estimating that the illegal organ trade generates profits between 600m US Dollars and 1.2bn US Dollars per year with a span over many countries.

The industry has flourished even as its practices have roused concerns about how tissues are obtained and how well grieving families and transplant patients are informed about the realities and risks of the business. In the US alone, the biggest market and the biggest supplier, an estimated two million products derived from human tissue are sold each year, a figure that has doubled over the past decade.

It is an industry that promotes treatments and products that literally allow the blind to see (through cornea transplants) and the lame to walk (by recycling tendons and ligaments for use in knee repairs). It’s also an industry fuelled by powerful appetites for bottom-line profits and fresh human bodies.

Human skin: In the US alone, the biggest market and the biggest supplier, an estimated two million products derived from human tissue are sold each year, a figure that has doubled over the past decade. In the US alone, the biggest market and the biggest supplier, an estimated two million products derived from human tissue are sold each year, a figure that has doubled over the past decade.

 Written by MASEMBE TAMBWE 

Source @DailyNews