World Organ Donation Day

Tags: Important Days

Every year 13 August is celebrated as World Organ Donation Day across the world with an aim to raise awareness about organ donation.

Important facts

• Apart from this, “National Organ Donation Day” is celebrated on 27 November every year in India.

• This year's theme is  “let’s pledge to donate organs and save lives”.

Importance

• This day is celebrated to dispel the myths of organ donation.

• It wants to encourage people to donate their healthy organs after death as it will save more lives.

• Its aim is to help people realise that many people lose their lives due to unavailability of healthy organs. Thus, voluntarily donating your healthy organs can change the lives of many people.

History of world organ donation

• The first temporarily successful transplant of a human kidney was performed by Jean Hamburger in Paris in 1953.

• A kidney was transplanted from the mother to a 16-year-old child.

• However, the first long-term successful kidney transplant was performed in the US in 1954.

• This successful transplant was performed by Dr. Joseph Murray.

• For this, Dr. Joseph Murray received the "Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine" in the year 1990.