Around 40 000 European patients are on waiting lists for an organ donation and nearly 10 of them die every day due to scarcity of organs. "Access to this life-saving treatment and its quality varies depending on which member state you are in. Moreover, the scarcity and uneven distribution of organs encourages the dreadful and illegal practice of human organ trafficking, said the EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou.
The Commission launched, on 27 June 2006, a public consultation on organ donation and transplantation to collect ideas on what initiatives should be taken at EU level to remedy the overall shortage of organs and member states' varying safety and quality procedures with regard the treatment.
Currently, few exchanges of organs occur between EU-25. The main European organ exchange organisations (EOEOs) recommend development of systems for offering excess organs and the exchange of patients between countries, which raise questions such as the reimbursement of costs, common transplant list admission criteria and prevention of registration on multiple transplant lists.
An EU directive on setting quality and safety standards for human tissues and cells was adopted in 2004 and for blood and blood products in 2002.
