Health
Organ donation also possible with corona infection
A styrofoam container for transporting organs intended for transplantation at the entrance to an operating room. photo
© Soeren Stache/dpa
The corona pandemic makes organ donation in Germany more difficult – then it turns out that the risk of transmission is lower than feared. Now Covid patients are also allowed to donate in this country.
Because transmission is almost impossible with careful selection, organs from corona-positive donors can now also be transplanted. Since this has been possible, according to information from the German Press Agency, there have been 39 Sars-CoV-2 positive donors in Germany by the end of October.
114 organs were removed from them and transplanted into 113 recipients, as reported by the German Foundation for Organ Transplantation (DSO) at its annual congress in Frankfurt. “There was not a single transmission of a Sars-CoV-2 infection from the donor to the recipient,” said DSO board member Axel Rahmel of the dpa.
The corona pandemic had made organ donation more difficult in Germany: After an organ transplant, the immune system is shut down, so it is important to prevent the virus from being transmitted from the donor to the recipient. Corona positives, contact persons of infected people and returnees from risk areas were excluded from organ donation.
Criteria relaxed in many countries
But then, according to the DSO, experiences from abroad showed that the risk of transmission was lower than feared, especially when the disease was mild. In many countries, the criteria were then relaxed. “In fact, so far only very few cases have become known in which there was a transmission from the donor to the recipient – and these only in connection with a lung transplant,” said Rahmel.
In May 2022, the German Medical Association and the German Transplantation Society also adjusted the acceptance criteria for donors in Germany. Only organ donors with a severe course, whose organs are so damaged that they are no longer suitable for transplantation, are now excluded. According to Rahmel, “extreme restraint” still applies to lung transplants. The DSO annual congress takes place on Thursday and Friday. The latest donor figures should also be published at the same time. The numbers have plummeted lately.