Four organs – a liver and three sets of lungs – donated from Cyprus for transplant surgery in Israel has given patients a new lease of life.
Israeli ambassador Shmuel Revel told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) about the great importance of this humanitarian cooperation between the two countries.
The latest case of organ donation concerned a young woman, whose liver and lungs were donated to Israel for transplants that were performed on two patients, while her kidneys were given to two patients in Cyprus.
The young woman, who was in Cyprus on holiday, suffered a brain haemorrhage. Her spouse gave his consent for her organs to be removed in order to be transplanted to patients.
Transplant Coordinator at Nicosia General Hospital, Chrystalla Despoti said that only kidney, cornea and pancreas transplants can be performed in Cyprus.
Lungs and livers from post-mortem donations go from Cyprus to the National Transplant Centre of Israel, in the framework of the two countries` cooperation.
Despoti said the lungs have to be transplanted within six hours while the liver within 12.
“It would be regretful not to give these organs in order to be transplanted to patients, since they give them so much hope.”
This year there were six post-mortem organ donations in Cyprus.
Ambassador Revel said "we attribute great importance to this humanitarian cooperation between our two countries. Organ transplantation can save lives and significantly improve quality of life."
He added: “Israel and Cyprus work closely together in many sectors and also in the field of Health. Many Cypriot doctors have studied and were trained in Israel, and also Israeli students study medicine in Cyprus.”
Approximately 2500 individuals have up until now been registered to Cyprus’ potential and after death organ donor database that was created in 2013.
The number is still small, compared to other countries, but people have begun to show more interest.
Despoti said this year some 400 people were registered to the database, while during previous years the average number of registrations was up to 300 max.
Cyprus and Israel signed in 2017 a Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation in the field of kidney transplantations.
The program aims at helping patients in need of kidney transplant, who have a living donor available, but are not compatible with each other.
In this way the two countries have the opportunity to benefit their citizens whom otherwise would not have been able to have kidney transplantations, by creating a pool of potential donors.
Vassilis Hadjianastasiou, Medical Director of the Transplant Centre, told CNA that there are currently four couples from Cyprus and 20 from Israel in this pool of possible donors and recipients.
He said that no transplant was conducted so far, adding that the bigger the pool the higher the chances are to find compatible donors.
He said that during the last 8.5 years 204 kidney transplants were performed in Cyprus and that currently approximately 60 people are waiting for a kidney.
This year eight kidney transplantations were performed, and three more will take place in September.
