Fast Growth of China’s Transplant Industry Since 2000

According to He Xiaoshun, a member of the Expert Committee of the Human Organ Donation Commission and Vice President of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhongshan University, the year 2000 was a watershed [for the organ transplant industry in China]; the number of liver transplants in 2000 reached 10 times that of 1999. By 2005, the number had tripled further.¹

Wu Mengchao, President of the Affiliated Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital of the Second Military Medical University and the ‘father of hepatobiliary surgery in China,’² said in an interview in May 2011, “in terms of liver transplants, our quantity has been the largest in the world. The quality and result are also good. We have caught up with international standards.”³

Since 2000, the entire United States, with more than 130 million registered organ donors―half of all U.S. adults―has performed an average of 6,000 liver transplants a year.⁴ In China, despite the paucity of donors, this number could be matched by just a few hospitals.

In January 2015, China’s transplant chief Huang Jiefu told CCTV, “I would like to quote the words of the World Health Organization that China has undertaken such a path in six to seven years whereas other developed countries building up their organ donation and transplant frameworks took dozens of years.”⁵

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