Organ transplantation in the Middle East and North Africa has evolved to serve two major needs. The first is to sustain life where severe disease or disorders would mean death without organ replacement as in congenital heart disease. The second need is to provide cost-effective treatment and a quality of life without constant tertiary care and maintenance treatment. Renal transplantation caused by chronic kidney disease and failure is one such example. Qatar in the Middle East and North Africa is one of six countries comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the Arabian Gulf Region, which has developed an active transplant program. It has one main challenge as other global nations, namely a disparity between organ availability and need, or supply and demand. A survey of university students' and employees' awareness of organ transplantation and donation was completed in 2013 at Education City, Doha, Qatar. Three hundred out of four hundred surveys were returned, or 75% of the total distributed. A literature review was carried out and comparisons made to the subsequent findings. Participants comprised 89% students and 11% employees. Of the participants, 90.6% were aware that donated organs were potentially life saving, and 72.7% knew about brain death. While most figures seemed comparable to other regional results, two significantly new findings emerged. More females (62.3%) than males (47.1%) believed that Islam supported organ donation, and 72.4% believed that there was no conflict between their faith and organ donation. Awareness campaigns and use of social media were thought to be the most effective way of disseminating organ donation knowledge.
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