Sponsored by the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM), Council of Europe in a different country every year since 1996, the European Day for Organ Donation and Transplantation (EDD) aims to raise public awareness of the need for organ, tissue and cell donation and promote the principle of voluntary and non-remunerated donation.
Demand for organ transplantation is increasing all over the world, but there are not enough organs available to meet the need. This shortage of organs is now the limiting factor in treating many patients with chronic organ failure and has led to high numbers of patients on waiting lists. On average in 2021, 36,000 patients receive a transplant and 41,000 new patients are registered on waiting lists in the member states of the Council of Europe. That’s nearly five new patients added to a transplant waiting list every hour. Thousands of patients are on waiting lists and, in 2021, an average of 20 patients died every day while waiting for an organ transplant in Europe.
Organ donation is very relevant to the pulmonary hypertension as, despite the huge strides of the past decades in terms of new treatments and treatment strategies, lung or lung-heart transplant remain an important therapeutic option for end stage disease.
Read more about the 2023 EDD and find out how you can get involved at this link
