THE letter “Radical option for organ transplant” (The Star, Aug 2) by Gomez Jacob was an interesting opinion in response to the recent reports in The Star on the stalemate in the organ transplant programme in Malaysia. This sorry state resulted from both the high number of patients with organ failure and the miserably low organ donation rate by Malaysians who otherwise are generally perceived as a caring lot!
Compared to the 46.7, 7, 9.95 and 4.3 deceased donors per million population (pmp) and 7.57, 47.5, 42.3 and 3.5 live organ donors pmp in Spain, Turkey, Korea and Thailand respectively, from 2015 to 2017, the rate of live donor kidney donation in Malaysia was only two per million population while the deceased donor organ donation rate was only between 0.4 and 0.6 pmp.