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Senior Russian health official highlights surge in organ transplants nationwide in 2017

Russia’s Health Ministry had drawn up a human organ transplant bill a few years ago, which was currently being finalized and reviewed

© Valeriy Sharifulin/TASS

MOSCOW, February 2. /TASS/. Around 1,700 organ transplants were carried out in Russia in 2017, Deputy Health Minister Dmitry Kostennikov said on Friday, adding that every year, the number of such operations has been increasing by 200 cases.

"The number of organ transplants is rising with every year," he said at a special meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society Development and Human Rights, dedicated to boosting organ donations. "In the past several years, the number has been climbing by 200 annually. In particular, there were 1,500 such operations conducted in 2016 and in 2017, their number exceeded 1,700," Kostennikov stressed.

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He noted that Russia’s Health Ministry had drawn up a human organ transplant bill a few years ago, which was currently being finalized and reviewed.

"The main controversial issue under consideration concerns building a balance between the medical community’s interests, which seeks as much access to donated organs as possible, and moral issues, that is, society will have to agree on ways to develop these technologies, as well as on conditions for acquiring organs for transplantation. There is a need for a broad public consensus," the deputy health minister pointed out.

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