ISLAMABAD, Feb 26: The health ministry has been informed that unethical trade in human organs was continuing despite a ban and now the investigation into the scam is being handed over to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

The decision was taken at the fourth meeting of the Human Organs Transplant Authority set up under an ordinance aimed at regulating practices involved in transplantation of organs. The government had promulgated the ordinance last year which banned the sale of kidneys. The ordinance did not completely proscribe donations by people not related to the patient. Rather, it permitted ‘voluntary donations by people not related’, a clause liable to be misused despite the condition of approval by an evaluation committee.

A senior official said the health ministry had been informed that the trade in kidneys was continuing unabated at the Kidney Centre in Rawalpindi and the Adil Hospital in Lahore. The official added that the ministry had decided to hand over the probe to the FIA.

It is learnt that the Kidney Centre has even confessed to have undertaken over half a dozen ‘unrelated transplants’, although it is not clear if this was done after meeting the legal obligation of getting approval from the patient-donor evaluation committee.

Commenting on complaints regarding continuation of the organs trade, a senior doctor said: “The failure of the ordinance on the one hand, and a lack of professional ethics on the other (to stop the unethical trade) make it essential for different and more imaginative strategies. These could include tightening the clause that allows ‘transplantation through people not related’, a greater transparency in the working of the regulatory body, mechanisms for granting exemplary punishment to and professional isolation of those found guilty.”