A national registration system for organ donations is likely to be set up by June to better manage human donations and transplants, a top Red Cross official has said.

"The move, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, is to establish an independent organization overseeing and managing organ transplants," Jiang Yiman, director of the China Red Cross Society, told China Daily.

A mechanism regulating and standardizing living organ donation and transplants will also be introduced soon, Huang Jiefu, vice-minister of health, said earlier.

The Red Cross will help mobilize the public to donate organs and tissues after death to help people in dire need of transplants, Jiang said.

It is officially estimated that 2 million Chinese need organ transplants each year, but only 20,000 operations are performed because of a severe shortage of donated matches. That means only one in 100 patients gets the right type of organs.

Donors will be registered only after they sign an agreement, she noted. "It (the system) will serve as a bridge linking potential donors and recipients."

Stories that volunteers find no way to donate organs after death make newspaper headlines from time to time, discouraging donors, she added.

Red Cross branches currently deal with after-death body donations which are used mainly for research and education rather than clinical purposes.

(China Daily April 28, 2008)