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Its senior clinical organ donation manager Dr Hasdy Haron said Malays made up 40%, Indians (9%) and others (1%) of the 359,484 active pledgers currently in its database.
He said while these figures were for pledgers, the numbers differ when it comes to actual donors as not all end up giving their organs after death due to the issue of consent from family members.
“So, the actual number of cadaveric donors is made up of Chinese 55%, Indians 26%, Malays 13% and others 6%. As for the ethnicity of recipients, it is similar to the Malaysian population ratio,” he told FMT.
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Hasdy said there was a sharp increase in the number of Muslim donors over the last two years as the national fatwa council had gazetted that cadaveric organ donation was permissible in Islam.
“The number of pledgers is rising although it is still not encouraging when compared to the size of the country’s population. However, we are continuing with our awareness campaigns and public acceptance appears to be more positive these days.”
Malaysia is listed at number 66 in the Global Observatory and Transplantation’s latest list with a rate of 0.21 per million people. The global rate is 6.37 while it is 3.48 for the western pacific region – the category for Malaysia.
According to the NTRC dashboard, the total number of organ pledgers from 1997 is 359,484 with 11,634 of them signing up just this year alone. “This growth is encouraging,” Hasdy said.
He said it was vital for pledgers to always inform family members, especially their next of kin who will have to give their consent before the organs could be harvested.
“The authorities cannot do anything without the consent even if they know the deceased had pledged their organs. Of course, our staff in hospitals are also trained to encourage family members of those who died to donate the organs even if they have not pledged.
“About 20% of the organs transplanted are from this category. But encouraging Malaysians to pledge their organs while still alive is our priority,” he said.
Hasdy said Malaysians could now pledge their organs via their MySejahtera App which can also be used to check their status and update their details, adding that the practice of issuing cards has been stopped.
According to the NTRC dashboard, the number of people in the waiting list for organs is 9,492. They include for kidneys (9,237 adults and 235 children), liver (five adults and two children), and heart and lungs (two).
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