• The government has banned the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners since January.

The government has banned the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners since January. (Photo : www.theworldofchinese.com)

China ranks as the top Asian country in terms of organ donations, according to the first national guideline on organ donation published on Saturday, Aug. 22, in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, the Global Times reported.

The guidelines said that even after the government had prohibited the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners starting Jan. 1, more than 1,500 voluntary organ donations were recorded in 2015.

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Liu Changqiu, an associate researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, was quoted by the Global Times as saying that public awareness on voluntary organ donation is growing in the country.

According to statistics from the China Organ Donation Administrative Center under the Red Cross Society of China, the number of volunteers who donated their organs increased from 1,087 in 2010 to 14,636 in 2014.

The Red Cross serves as a coordinator that accepts applications for organ donations.

The report said that the principles and polices in the field, including ethics and standards governing the extraction and distribution of organs, are outlined and explained in the guideline.

Huang Jiefu, head of a national human organ donation and transplant committee and chief author of the guideline, expressed hope that the public's misunderstanding and prejudice toward donating organs after death would be answered and explained by the guideline.

Huang expects that this year, some 2,500 people will voluntarily donate organs and more than 10,000 organ transplant operations will be conducted.

The report said that patients who receive organ transplants still face challenges despite improvements, due to the lack of related hospitals and doctors.

"Currently, there are about 300,000 patients who need organ transplantation. But only over 10,000 people can receive the transplant every year and the others need to wait," Huang said.

Zhu Jiye, director of the Organ Transplantation Center of Peking University, said on Sunday, Aug. 23, that most Chinese people are hesitant to donate organs because under the Chinese tradition, maintaining a whole corpse after death is regarded as important.