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KUALA LUMPUR – Registration of organ donation can be made through the MySejahtera application from September 6, said Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin.
He said the decision was made following the country’s precariously low rate of organ donation.
Malaysia ranks among the 10 lowest countries in terms of transplant rate in 2021 at only 2.84 organ transplants done per million population according to the Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation.
“When people make a pledge via MySejahtera, the information directly reaches the National Transplant Resource Centre.
“If there is a case of death in any hospital which is eligible for organ donation, it will come out in the system,” he said at a press conference after closing the national-level Organ Donation Awareness Week here today.
Khairy said the number of patients who are still waiting to get an organ donation in Malaysia as of today is 10,442 people.
However, he said, only 2,700 transplant cases involving organ donation had been carried out since 1975.
“Based on the latest organ donation statistics from the National Transplant Resource Centre in July 2022, there have been 779 organ donors after death since 1997.
“The number of organ donor pledges now stands at 517,758 people since 1997,” he said.
Commenting on the wearing of face masks, Khairy said he will make an announcement regarding the new regulations on face masks this Wednesday.
He said the public health executive committee which he chairs has received recommendations from experts on the use of face masks and the Health Ministry (MoH) is still in the process of gathering the public’s views on the matter.
Meanwhile, he said three approaches need to be evaluated by the MoH before the country announced its move to the endemic phase, including a declaration from the World Health Organisation.
In addition, Khairy said the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342) was still applicable until the end of December this year, and all areas in the country were declared as areas of infectious diseases.
The third approach is health indicators that need to be obtained from epidemiologists in the context of Covid-19 virus which is still mutating. – Bernama, September 4, 2022