Health takes the first step to repeal the rule that prevents organ donation among people with HIV

This was announced by García during the World AIDS Day commemoration event that took place this Monday at the Ministry of Health. The rule in question currently prevents transplants from donors with HIV from being performed on recipients with the same infection. Removing this order was a historic demand of HIV patients, as well as the health professionals who care for them.

According to data from the Quality Assurance Program in the Donation Process of the National Transplant Organization, if this regulatory limitation had not existed in the last decade, 65 people who died and had HIV could have donated their organs and made 165 transplants possible. At the same time, as the ministry highlights in an informative note, each year around 50 patients with HIV enter the waiting list for a transplant in Spain.

The order responds to the context of the 1980s in Spain, with the emergence of HIV. At the time, organ transplantation in people with HIV infection was considered a high-risk intervention. However, over the years the first experiences of organ transplantation in recipients with HIV with good results began to be published, so the scientific community began to question whether this infection should continue to be a contraindication for transplantation.

Transplants of all types of organs

In Spain, the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (Seimc), the National AIDS Plan and the National Transplant Organization adopted in 2005 the National Consensus Document by which transplants of all types of organs are performed in patients with HIV. To date, our country has registered 311 kidney transplants, 510 liver transplants, 11 lung transplants, 10 heart transplants and 1 pancreas-kidney transplant.