ISLAMABAD, Sept 30: The government is moving a new legislation in the Parliament on organ transplant to curb rampant practice of unethical and illegal donation of body parts in the country.

Speaking at a national training course organized to establish institutional ethical review committee, Health Secretary Anwar Mehmood said the legislation aimed at eliminating illegal sale of organ donations for transplant — a practice that had degenerated into massive exploitation of the poor.

Punitive actions have been suggested in the law drafted after adopting a private member bill, the secretary said.

It was a longstanding demand of the health experts to enact an organ transplant law, the absence of which had made Pakistan a hub of illegal kidney trade. Cities like Rawalpindi and Lahore have become centres where scores of foreigners, especially Arabs, are coming for kidney transplant, exploiting poor donors, who sell their kidney without realizing the adverse impact on their health, the experts said.

The illegal kidney trade and transplants are being done in the two big cities by doctors who are not experts in the field and who operate in small places without proper facilities, in violation of medical ethics, norms and standards, the experts said.

The three-day training activity was organized by the Pakistan Medical Research Council (PMRC) at a local hotel to discuss key areas and issues in the light of ethics in health research, highlight emerging issues, public health research ethics, population health and clinical trains etc.

The health secretary urged the health professionals to rise to the occasion and use their influence to weed out such unethical practices.

He also asked the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) to enforce code of ethics among medical professionals, adding that someone had to take notice of unethical clinical practices of exploiting patients by offering “sure treatment” of different diseases.

The secretary informed the gathering that he had also written letters to All Pakistan Newspaper Society, Pakistan Television Corporation and information secretary with a request to intervene and stop unethical advertisement being shown even on the state-owned television.

To promote good manufacturing practices by different manufacturing units, he said, the health ministry had also cancelled the licences of different drug factories.

Good manufacturing practices, research and good clinical practices go hand in hand, he said, adding that “we all have to work in unison for the betterment of the people”.

Earlier, WHO representative Dr Khalif Bile Mehmud emphasized the need for developing standard operating procedures for doctors. He described the training course as a first step towards inculcating ethics among health professionals.

PMRC National Programme Manager Huma Qureshi also highlighted the need for developing systems for ethical review.

The risk of causing any harm to the patients in clinical practices and research subjects is very high in the absence of awareness, knowledge and regulations with regard to ethical practices, she said.