THE detention of three Bangladeshis and four Indians, including a surgeon, by the Delhi police in the past week for illegal trafficking in organs, suggests that the authorities of both the countries have failed to stop transnational illegal organ trade that has continued for years. The detained surgeon of the Delhi-based Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals is reported to have already performed 16 kidney transplants in 2021鈥�23. For the transplants, the surgeon and his associates chose the Noida-based private Yatharth Hospital. The Indian police say that the racket lures kidney donors from Bangladesh, especially poor, and offer them Tk 200,000鈥�500,000. The racket also forges documents to show that donors and the patients are related. In some cases, poor Bangladeshis are taken to India with an offer for a job and then their kidneys are forcibly removed. Law enforcers in Bangladesh earlier arrested a number of people involved in illegal organ trade, but the practice has worryingly continued. The trade has continued for a number of reasons, mainly the absence of an effective regulatory body, the absence of a cadaveric organ donation culture and poverty.
The High Court in Bangladesh asked the government in December 2019 to amend the Transplantation of Human Organs Act to allow kidney donation by not only close relatives, as stipulated in the law, but also by known people, to strengthen the National Cadaveric Committee and to stop illegal organ trade. Nothing, however, has changed. The National Cadaveric Committee, formed in accordance with the law, has remained a poorly functioning body and has largely failed to regulate organ donation, oversee human organ transplant, visit transplant activities, advise the government regarding human organ transplant and raise awareness. It is estimated that about a million people in Bangladesh need organ transplants while less than 1 per cent of them can manage organs. The need for organ transplant is, therefore, growing with time, but the culture of organ donation, especially cadaveric, is not well established, resulting in illegal organ trade and a large number of death every year. Against the demand for about 10,000 kidney transplants a year, only around 100 people on an average can manage kidneys from their relatives for transplant. The entire chaotic scene and the illegal organ trade could be drastically reduced if there were a properly functional government agency while the illegal organ trade could be stopped if justice was delivered in every incident.
The authorities in both Bangladesh and India must, therefore, enhance regulation and work together to stop the illegal organ trade. The Bangladesh authorities must also strengthen the national committee to oversee organ donation and transplant and create awareness. The authorities must also make local hospitals more capable of dealing with organ transplant.