Commentary: The World Health Assembly resolution on human organ and tissue transplantation.

摘要

On May 21, 2010, the 63rd World Health Assembly (WHA) endorsed the World Health Organization (WHO) Guiding Principles on human cell, tissue, and organ transplantation (1). These principles and the accompanying resolution, Sixty-Third World Health Assembly-WHA 63.22 (2), are published on pages 229-235, and their adoption marks a seminal day in the history of transplantation. This means that Minister of Health of each country with transplantation practices has now agreed to these principles. The representatives of the member states that commented on the Resolution and Guiding Principles were Australia, Chile, China, Gabon, Germany, Iraq, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan-China, and United States. All spoke in strong support of the resolution and these principles, and there was not a negative sentiment in the room. These guiding principles should, thus, be expected to guide your government. The WHA urged governments to take actions that you will applaud, but which may lead to changes in your environment with respect to transparency, allocation, regulation of safety, and in general with respect to oversight of transplantation practices. There is, for example, a request to encourage the implementation of globally consistent coding systems for human cells, tissues, and organs to assist in traceability. The resolution also turns back to the WHO and requests that the Director General to undertake seven actions, which between them provide an ongoing workload for the WHO Secretariat-the WHO has thus been requested to stay on the job. Governments of the world are concerned about organ trafficking, adverse events after transplantation, and the need for analysis of global data on safety, quality, efficacy, epidemiology, and ethics of our work. They have asked the Director General to report back every 4 years on progress, so they clearly do not want the WHO's eye to stray from the ball.