Covid behind ‘devastating’ fall in organ transplants

ORGAN transplants fell by almost a third in the UK last year, according to a study published in The Lancet.

Transplants are procedures that carry a high level of risk of infection due to their highly invasive nature, and with the Covid-19 pandemic, many were delayed or cancelled.

Organ transplant patients also need time in hospital to recover, a luxury many hospitals could not afford as beds and resources were diverted to treat an influx of coronavirus cases.

Dr Olivier Aubert, Assistant Professor at the Paris Translational Research Centre for Organ Transplantation, led the research and collated data from 22 countries, including the UK.

It found that there was an overall decrease of 16 per cent across all studied nations in 2020 compared to 2019, but the figure was 31 per cent for the UK.

A total of 1,298 fewer transplants were done in 2020 than 2019, the data show, with the bulk of them (1,076) being kidney transplants.

However, lung transplants suffered the biggest hit year-on-year, down 48 per cent in 2020 compared to 2019.

Data show that in the UK in 2019 there was between 25 and 30 organ transplants done every day.

However, in spring 2020, the rate plummeted to less than seven a day nationwide as Covid cases soared and the country went into lockdown.

During the summer, the number of operations reached normal levels, before declining again as cases took off once more in autumn.

“The first wave of Covid-19 had a devastating impact on [transplants], affecting patient waiting lists and [leading] to a substantial loss of life,” said Dr Aubert.

Data from the UK was obtained from the NHS Blood and Transplant, and two experts from the NHS were co-authors of the study.

In the latest annual report from the NHS body, it revealed that as of March 2021 there were 4,256 patients on the waiting list for a transplant.