The number of organ donors in Germany fell surprisingly sharply in the first three months of the current year.

As the German Foundation for Organ Transplantation (DSO) announced on Friday in Frankfurt, only 176 people donated their organs after their death in the first three months of the current year.

That is 29 percent less than in the same period last year.

The number of organs removed fell by a similar amount to 562 in the first quarter.

The medical director of the DSO, Axel Rahmel, spoke of a "dramatic development" for the approximately 8,500 patients who are currently waiting for a donor organ.

Kim Bjorn Becker

Editor in Politics.

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As the DSO reports, the slump in donor numbers came "completely unexpected".

So far, Germany has come through the Corona crisis comparatively well when it comes to organ donation.

In the first year of the pandemic, i.e. 2020, 913 people nationwide donated one or more organs after their death, in 2021 the number rose to 933. Immediately before the start of the Corona crisis, the number of donors was 932.

The DSO attributes the recent slump primarily to staff shortages in the clinics as a result of the pandemic.

There is a "high probability" that fewer organs could be removed due to a lack of staff.

The identification of organ donors and the medical clarification involve a lot of work.

However, the DSO did not record a decrease in the so-called organ donation-related contacts between the hospitals and the DSO in the first quarter.

The foundation, based in Frankfurt, is involved in every organ donation process and accompanies it professionally.

In the first three months there were 820 contacts, in the same period of previous years there were sometimes fewer (2021: 803 contacts) and sometimes just as many (2020: 820).

It is possible that the organ donation process fails at a later point in time.

Two things speak for this.

According to the DSO, relatives agreed to organ removal less often than usual at the beginning of the year. In addition, eleven percent more donors were recently rejected for medical reasons.

According to the DSO, this is “directly related” to the spread of the corona virus.

Until recently, an infection was a reason for exclusion from organ donation.

According to the information, the number of donors who were not accepted because of Corona had almost doubled recently.

Since March, organ removals have been carried out “in individual cases” if the donor is infected with corona but shows no signs of illness.

The recipients of such an organ would be informed accordingly beforehand, it is said.