In 2022 alone, Qatar performed at least 41 kidney transplants with a success rate of 100%, including 25 kidney transplants from living donors.

Medics in Qatar have successfully transplanted a kidney from a brain-deceased child to a 48-year-old patient, the Gulf state’s news agency (QNA) reported on Monday.

The surgery was a collaboration between Hamad General Hospital (HGH) and Sidra Medicine, the first such joint procedure between the two Qatari medical entities, the Head of the Kidney Transplant Section at Hamad Medical Corporation, Dr. Yousuf Al Maslamani confirmed.

“Dr. Al Maslamani stated that this operation is a result of the collaboration agreement recently signed between Hamad Medical Corporation and Sidra Medicine. This agreement includes Hamad General Hospital benefiting from organs donated at Sidra Medicine, particularly for urgent cases of patients in need of organ transplantation,” QNA reported.

Dr. Abu Bakr Imam, the Nephrology Division Chief at Sidra Medicine, added that the child’s family had offered to donate the kidney “immediately upon learning of the tragic news of his brain-death” at Sidra Medicine.

The child’s—whose name and age have not been disclosed—kidney was then transferred to HGH. 

Since 2018, Sidra Medicine and HMC have been collaborating in the field of organ transplantation, with organs often being transported from the latter.

Qatar’s organ donation programme

Qatar has been expanding its organ donation programme to provide patients with critical conditions life-saving donations. The Qatar Center for Organ Transplantation ranks among the top in the world in its field.

In 2022 alone, Qatar performed at least 41 kidney transplants with a success rate of 100%, including 25 kidney transplants from living donors and 16 kidney transplants from deceased donors.

In July, Dr. Al Maslamani confirmed that Qatar so far completed at least 24 kidney transplants this year, none of which resulted in complications. Out of the total figure, 15 were from living donors, including 9 from deceased donors.

Meanwhile in January, the organ donor registry at the Qatar Organ Donation Center reached 500,000, or about 25% of the country’s adult population of Qatar. The figure represents a 10.5% increase in organ donors in comparison to 2021.

Residents in Qatar can register to be organ donors at the Qatar Organ Donation Center in order to receive an official ‘donor card.’ The card acts as a form of identification to confirm to others that the individual, in the event of his or her death, is an organ donor.