by Zachary Hendrickson

Posted on May 27, 2013

The Indian government is preparing a new online network that will allow people in need of organ transplants to connect directly with potential donors. The network will make available the names of donors and patients as well as their blood type and other pertinent medical information. Once a donor and a recipient have been matched and made contact, their information is deleted from the network. All hospitals across the country will be a part of the new online initiative that aims to expedite the organ transplantation process and curb illegal organ trafficking. The Indian government will be providing funds for each hospital to hire an organ transplant coordinator and free software needed to access the online database.

A new autonomous government organization under the health ministry, the National Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation (NOTTO), will be responsible for overseeing all subsequent organ donations and transplants in India. The organisation will be headquartered out of Safdarjung Hospital in south Delhi, with four regional NOTTO centers set up across the country as well. This is most certainly a step in the right direction for India, where 200,000 people are diagnosed with renal failure each year and only 3,000 transplants take place annually. According to Anoop Misra, the chairman of the Fordis Centre for Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases, “We needed something like this very much… It is doable and a patient-driven necessity.”

(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/internet/Organ-transplant-Online-network-to-connect-donor-recipient/articleshow/20294050.cms by IANS – Times of India)