| ■ Philippines' kidney register to fight trafficking | 2010.06.25 |
| The Philippines said Friday it is setting up a nationwide organ donor register in a bid to stop the practice of its poor selling their kidneys to make ends meet. Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral said she hoped the project would help provide donor organs for the estimated 9,000 Filipinos who suffer kidney failure every year. "We seek not only to improve an important service for many patients... but also to assure that the illegal traffic of organs that has victimised many of our countrymen for many years until 2008 will not be repeated," she added. Over the past decade the Philippines has gained an international reputation as a hub for the illegal traffic in human organs from living donors, with some hospitals catering for wealthy foreign patients requiring kidney transplants. In some poor communities many of the men carry surgical scars on one side of their torsos, after selling a kidney for as little as 3,000 dollars. |