KARACHI - Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) has become the largest centre of South Asia which is performing highest number of kidney transplantations in the world. The SIUT initiated the kidney transplantation programme in 1986 and has performed over 2000 kidney transplants to date at a cost of Rs 300 million. Around 100 or 110 people in the country suffer from kidney failure in a year. SIUT has spent Rs 1.2 billion on medicines since 1986. The legislation on organ donation has played a significant role in changing the scenario of transplantation in Pakistan. After the implementation of the Transplant Ordinance in 2007, SIUT increased its capacity of transplanting. This year the number of transplants will go beyond 396; while over 1000 kidney transplants for foreigners worth Rs 1.8 billion have diminished after the legislation depicting the change in the scenario of transplantation in Pakistan. The administration of the SIUT has decided to setup another kidney centre in Sukkur. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday Director SIUT Prof Dr Adeeb-ul-Hassan Rizvi held at the Agha Hassan Abidi Auditorium of the SIUT. He stressed the need for setting up more kidney centres in different parts of the country so that state-of-the-art medical facility could be provided to the people. He said that SIUT was already engaged in providing free of cost medical facilities to great number of people in the country. "The SIUT has modern dialysis centre to facilitate 600 kidney-failure patients as the dialysis was considered as an integral part of the transplantation." He said, "In the early period from 1987 to 1990, SlUT had performed about 22 transplants a year. This figure gradually increased to 130 and 150 by 2006. The record of transplantation results shows one year's patient survival of 94 per cent, recipient rehabilitation 85 per cent and donation-related mortality zero per cent. SIUT receives the pairs of living related donors and recipients from all provinces of the country including Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. The statistics show that 1194 recipients and their donors were from Sindh, 127 from Balochistan, 641 from Punjab, 57 from NWFP and 11 from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir." Rizvi said that centres in different regions of the world were leading in numbers of kidney transplants annually. These are located in Africa with 81 transplants performed at Mansoura Hospital, in Europe 192 transplants at Manchester Hospital and in Tehran, 288 transplants have been performed in one year. In the University of California, San Francisco, 366 transplants were recorded. "It is a credit for SIUT in Asia that 396 transplants have been performed in 2007. All the centres in the world have dual programmes of living related and cadaver donations. SIUT is the only institution which is accepting donors only from the immediate family." Talking about the importance of the legislation, he said the record illustrated that about 200 living related kidney transplants were performed before the legislation was imposed. "After the implementation of the law, nearly 450 transplants have been performed. The unrelated kidney transplants declined from 350 before the legislation to 150 after the imposition of the law," he added. "SIUT is now the biggest centre for living donation in the world. Living donation can only provide the kidneys whereas other organs such as liver, pancreas and lungs need a cadaver organ donation programme. To gain success on this aspect and to understand its benefits, the society has to be motivated through public education. High ethical standards are the prerequisite of successful transplantation to ensure public trust on which the edifice of the deceased's donor transplantation will be erected to help the millions needing an organ in Pakistan," he maintained.