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The women contributed 78% of living organ donors in India, while their share among recipients was only 19%, according to a research carried out by Dr. Vivek Kute, honorary secretary, Indian Society of Organ Transplantation (ISOT) and Professor of Nephrology, IKDRC-ITS Ahmedabad between 2013 and 2019.
Few factors to explain these gender differences of the aforementioned information reported gender bias is that men have a higher incidence of end-stage diseases that necessitate a transplant and are more inclined to hypertension or ischemic diseases, leading to their inappropriateness as donors. Due to socio-economic factors, 90% spousal kidney donors are women whereas only 39% daughter become kidney donors.
While the requirement for organ transplants in India continues to be high, there has been a noticeable impact on our health care system, including life-saving procedures like organ transplantation in last one year of pandemic.
Organ transplantations saves lives of patients affected by terminal organ failures and helps to improve quality of life. It has been an accepted mean of treating patients with severe organ failure in India for nearly five decades.
It is estimated that every year about 5,00,000 people in India need an organ.
As per Indian Government advisory, most of the transplant-related activity and evaluation other than emergency lifesaving transplants were temporarily suspended in India during the months of March–May 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Once the deferment was lifted, a team of experts led by Dr. Vivek Kute, successfully conducted a cohort study of 31 kidney transplant recipients (KTR) from living donors who recovered from polymerase chain reaction confirmed Covid-19 across 19 transplant centres in India from July 3, 2020, to December 5, 2020.
The study published in the reputed Transplantation Journal is the largest cohort of KTR from living donors who recovered from Covid-19. Talking about this study and its outcome, Dr. Kute said, “Given the high number of people in India who require organ transplant, it was important to understand if it would be safe for people who have recovered from Covid-19 infection to donate their organs. Organ transplant is an effective and proven way of saving lives of many people with end-stage organ dysfunction.”
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