Over a million people in India suffered irreversible organ failure during 2014, but a few of them could be provided with organ transplantation as only 3,500 organ donations were recorded during the year.
An estimated 9.5 million people die of various reasons every year of whom a large number could have been potential organ donors leading to the saving of scores of lives, pointed out Dr Manoj Kumar Sahu, head of the Gastroenterology and Hepatobiliary Sciences Department of the Institute of Medical Sciences and Sum Hospital on the eve of the World Day for Organ Donation and Transplantation to be observed on Saturday.
Attending an awareness rally on organ donation, he stated that about 15,000 people out of a large number of people waiting to receive an organ die every year.
A large number of students of the university accompanied by three prominent sports icons, lazarus Barla, Anuradha Biswal and Amiya Mallick, took out a rally from the Ram Mandir square the the Bharat Scout and Guide Headquarters where a meeting was held.
Dr Sahu said people of all ages can donate a kidney, a portion of the liver and pancreas and still continue to live a normal life. But a person, if brain dead, could donate both the corneas, the heart, both lungs, both kidneys, whole liver, pancreas, intestine, skin, bone and tendons.