Doctors bow to Sherif ElGazzar from Greece as a tribute before an organ donation surgery in a hospital in Guangzhou, capital of South China’s Guangdong Province, on August 23, 2018. Photo: VCG

A total of 24,112 organs have been donated by Chinese citizens after their deaths from January 2015 to December 2019, and the per-million population of organ donations have climbed from 2.01 in 2015 to 4.16 in 2019, according to a report from the China Organ Transplantation Development Foundation. 

The foundation released a report on organ transplantation development in China on Saturday. It said that deceased donations in China have reached 5,818 in 2019, and 19,454 operations for organ transplantation were made last year. 

The average age of organ donors is 47 years old, and child donors under the age of 18 account for 8.2 percent of the total. Most donors are male, according to the report.  

Whilst organ transplantation has been disrupted in most countries, such operations were not disturbed in China. 

In a Saturday conference, where the report was released, Wang Hesheng, deputy head of the National Health Commission said that until the end of November 2020 there were roughly 33,000 cases of organ donations, and more than 93,000 organs were given. 

At least six COVID-19 patients have undergone lung transplants in China as a final option to save virus patients in a critical condition, with medical costs totaling more than 7 million yuan ($1.1 million), which was covered by the government. 

When asked why, Huang Jiefu, head of the China National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee and chairman of the China Organ Transplantation Development Foundation, attributed the achievement to China's swift response in containing the coronavirus. 

"The second reason would be organ donation has been widely recognized and supported by the public. And patients suffering from organ failure cannot wait, so operations have not been suspended in China due to the virus," said Huang.

Some international organ transplantation experts have also praised China as a role model in leading organ transplantations, including Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, also chancellor of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Francis Delmonico, former president of The Transplantation Society and a Harvard Medical School professor. 

Huang previously said that China will hopefully become the country with the highest rate of organ transplantations in the world, and reach a scale of 50,000 organ transplants per year.