Impact of Organ Donation During COVID-19

Organ donation and transplant surgery are considered safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are protocols to continue performing these procedures that are safe for health care providers and patients.

In 2019, surgeons across the U.S. //performed 39,719 organ transplant procedures, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).

Opt-out Organ Donation Could Affect Transplant Waitlists
A policy shift to adopt presumed consent from the current opt-in system could benefit the organ donation situation in the United States. Another way to increase the donor pool is to break down barriers to the living donation of kidneys and livers.

‘Organ donation and transplant surgery are considered safe during the pandemic. Various protocols are in place to ensure safe donation. An increase in deceased donor transplants and a decrease in live donor transplants are observed during the pandemic.’
Read More..

Tweet it Now

More than 19,000 living and deceased donors donated their kidneys, livers, lungs, hearts and other vital organs to people in desperate need.

The need for organ transplantations during the COVID-19 pandemic remains great, with more than 109,000 people currently on the U.S. organ transplant waiting list.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services considers transplant surgeries to be high acuity. They are given the same status as trauma operations, operations performed to prevent amputation and lifesaving cardiac procedures.

Kidney Transplant Patients Provided With New Hope - Use of Normothermic Machine Perfusion With Stem Cells
Normothermic Machine Perfusion (NMP) with adult stem cells increases the function and lifespan of the donor’s kidneys. It opens a new possibility to pre-treat kidneys and increases the number of functional kidneys available.

Transplants involving deceased donors continued uninterrupted during the pandemic.

U.S. surgeons have performed 429 more deceased donor organ transplants through September 6 this year than at this time in 2019.

Tamil Nadu Adopts Transplantation of Human Organs Act of 2011 and Rules of 2014
The Transplantation of Human Organs (Amendment) Act, 2011 (Central Act 16 of 2011) has been adopted by the state of Tamil Nadu on 24th March 2020.

Organ recipients from living donors don’t have the same urgency as those awaiting organs from deceased donors. So, as the number of COVID-19 cases increased, almost all U.S. transplant centers suspended living donor transplants.

At the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, they suspended living donor transplants in March. They restarted them on May 14, once they felt it was safe to resume.

Coronavirus Facts from Autopsy Reports of COVID-19 Patients
Autopsies onCOVID-19 patients reveals a lot of information on the virus. There have been no reports of COVID-19 transmission between a corpse and a pathologist.

Through Sept. 6, U.S. surgeons had performed 1,361 fewer living donor transplants this year as compared to the same time last year.

The suspension of living donor transplants gave hospitals time to implement new safety measures.

Protocols have been developed to screen all recipients and living donors at Hershey Medical Center. Living donors and transplant recipients should undergo an initial telephone screening for symptoms and exposures to COVID-19 before coming to the Medical Center.

All patients receive a nasal swab test for COVID-19. Recipients undergo a low-dose chest CT to confirm the absence of radiographic signs of viral pneumonia.

If patients test positive for COVID-19, they cannot proceed with the transplantation. However, no patients transplanted at the Hershey Medical Center have tested positive.

Similar protocols have been developed to screen deceased donors. These protocols are in addition to the standard COVID-19 precautions practiced hospital-wide.

Finding suitable donors remain a priority throughout the nation. There are always people in need. The fear of contracting COVID-19 should not prevent a person from potentially saving a life. All necessary tests are being performed to ensure safety during donation.

Source-Medindia