Guidelines for ethics review committee on organ procurement and transplantation released

The National Health Commission, China's top health authority, on Monday released a guideline specifying requirements of the establishment of an ethics review committee for organ procurement and transplantations at hospitals.

The document said that medical institutions carrying out organ procurement and transplants should set up an ethics review committee and each committee should comprise at least nine personnel and of an odd number.

The committee will be responsible for reviewing applications for collection of donated organs from a living or deceased donor. Committee members should promptly organize a meeting upon receiving applications and issue a written approval with the agreement of two-thirds or more of them.

A virtual meeting is acceptable while ensuring information security and records of the meeting should be stored, said the guideline.

The committee will review items such as whether the written consent for voluntary posthumous donations is genuine and whether there is any form of buying, selling or trading of human organs involved in the process.

The guideline added that medical institutions should take the primary responsibility for review while local health authorities should step up supervision over their work.

The number of organ donations in China has been increasing in recent years. Last year, the nation recorded 10,778 organ donations, including 6,454 posthumous organ donations, according to official data.

In December last year, the nation unveiled its new national regulation on human organ transplantation that incorporated the first revisions made in over a decade based on an old version released in 2007.