Organ donation

The pharmaceutical company Hemofarm and the Hemofarm Foundation have won the main Virtus Award a national level campaign.

The award, given by the Trag Foundation, was awarded an organ donation and transplantation campaign in Serbia dubbed, "The most important call of life."

Some 30,000 patients are currently waiting for organ transplants in Turkey, with approximately 2,000 of them losing their lives each year in the process, according to statistics released from the World Health Organization (WHO). 

A total of 4,552 organ transplants were made in 2015 in Turkey, the statistics also showed.

More than 30 transplants have been carried out in Bulgaria since the beginning of 2016.

At the same time, 1,085 people are waiting for organ transplants - most of them need a kidney.

These figures rank Bulgaria second to last in terms of the number of transplants and last in terms of the number of donors in all of Europe.

One day, cardiac patients may enjoy a new lease on life with pig hearts beating in their chests, said researchers reporting a major advance on April 5 in cross-species organ transplantation.

Given the dire shortage of organ donors, the use of animal hearts, lungs or livers to save human lives has long been a holy grail of medical science.   

A local court in Turkey sentenced on Jan. 20 a total of 15 suspects to between two and 24 years in jail for trading organs on social media, in a ruling which came after five years. 

Police initially began to surveille an organ trade gang in the southern province of Adana in 2011. 

The head of the Turkish Kidney Foundation has sent a letter to Turkey's health minister demanding him to take action against a recent court ruling which has prompted fears of increased organ trade in the country. 

Two Turkish courts have annulled procedures of an organ transplant commission prohibiting organ donation to third parties, a move that may encourage illegal organ trade according to an organ donation foundation.

Tu?çe Albayrak, a 22-year-old Turkish student who was killed while defending two German girls from being harassed last year, now ?lives? in five different people through a series of organ transplants.

Tu?çe Albayrak, a 22-year-old Turkish student who was killed while defending two German girls from being harassed last year, now ?lives? in five different people through a series of organ transplants.

A two-year-old Turkish boy, whose intended heart transplant surgery in Germany was rejected because he had suffered brain damage, has been returned to Turkey by his parents “only to donate his organs.”

Muhammet Eren Dönmez was taken to Giessen University’s pediatric service unit for a heart transplant after a heart donor could not be found in Turkey.