Under the new amendments to the Human Tissue Act 1974, only gazetted hospitals will be allowed to perform human organ transplants while doctors performing the transplants are required to be registered as transplant specialist.

Health Minister Dr Chua Soi Lek said in a Bernama report that the amendments were to improve the transplantation procedures in the country besides updating the act itself to include new definitions including the definition of tissue itself.

"The amendments to be tabled in Parliament next year would also prohibit the sale, commercialisation of transaction and advertisement of human organs," he said after launching the 1st National Transplant Registry Report at Selayang Hospital in Selangor today.

The National Transplant Registry, established in 2003, aimed to establish a national audit to analyse and understand the demography and outcomes of transplantations of the various organs and tissues carried out in the country.

Low transplant rate

Chua said the transplant rate in the country remained low whereby as at the end of last year only 2,653 organ transplants were carried out under various tissue and organ categories such as corneal, marrow, kidney, liver and heart.

The kidney transplant rate for example was about six per million population per year compared to the dialysis kidney patients ratio of 101 per million population last year.

Chua said besides the Kuala Lumpur Hospital, regional transplant procurement units would be established in Penang, Ipoh, Kuantan, Johor Baharu, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu.

On the transplant registry report, he said it marked an important milestone in the organ and tissue transplant history of the country.