Project agreements signed under PACE
Under the Patent Acquisition and Collaborative Research (PACE) programme, Department of Scientific & Industrial Research (DSIR) signed two separate Tripartite Agreements .
Giving a second lease of life to a 63-year-old man, a heart was flown from Bangalore to Fortis Escorts Heart Institute (FEHI), Delhi. The heart had been harvested from a 15-year-old Bengaluru boy who had been declared brain dead.
On Thursday morning, FEHI received a call from NOTTO saying that a potential donor was available at Fortis Bangalore. Subsequently, a team left for Bengaluru for heart retrieval.
Meanwhile, after complete evaluation of the patient he was advised for cardiac transplant.
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After a plane landed with the boy’s heart in Delhi a green corridor was created between IGI Airport and FEHI which enabled covering a distance of 23 kilometres in 19 minutes.
Speaking on the condition of the patient, Dr ZS Meharwal, FEHI director Cardiovascular Surgery said: “A heart transplant is a critical surgery where timing is a key factor. We had a window period of five hours in which we had to retrieve the heart from Bangalore, transport it to FEHI and perform the transplant.”
He informed that in India approximately 2,10,000 patients require heart transplant but only 8,000 patients could get a donor. In spite of the Human Organ Transplant Act 1994, cadaveric transplant are still limited in number.
Cadaver organ donation varies from 0.26 per million population to a maximum of 1 per million in few states.
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