Planes race against time for transplant patients

Since launching in 2017, China's civil aviation "green passage" for transporting donated human organs has helped save the lives of thousands of terminally ill patients.

As of September, the green passage has been used more than 4,500 times to transport more than 4,700 donated human organs, according to a press conference held by the National Health Commission on Tuesday, chinanews.com reported.

Livers, kidneys and hearts are the three most frequently transported organs using the green channel. Other organs transported via the channel include lungs and corneas.

China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Air China and Shanghai Airlines have completed the most trips transporting donated human organs.

Airports in Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Hangzhou and Guangzhou have been major hubs offering support for transferred organs' arrival over the past three years.

A few days ago, China United Airlines successfully transported a living lung to Tianjin, its 63rd live organ transportation completed in 2019.

Thanks to the green channel, the timespan for organ transportation has been shortened by an average of 1 to 1.5 hours over the past three years; the organ sharing rate across China has increased nearly 8 percent and the organ utilization rate by 6.7 percent, according to statistics.

The annual donation and transplantation of human organs in China now ranks first in Asia and second in the world. Indicators such as graft/recipient survival rate also stand at high levels globally, according to the National Health Commission.

In the first half of 2019, 2,757 people in China donated organs after death, an increase of 9.5 percent over the same period in 2018; the number of donated organs was 7,186, up 3.6 percent over the same period last year.