Transplant awareness week

Health Minister Dina Akkelidou yesterday signed a donor card, calling on all Cypriots to do the same.

Speaking at a news conference, Akkelidou highlighted the upcoming week which will feature different events organised by the Cyprus Transplant Association (CTA), including a football match between APOEL Nicosia and AEK Larnaca, awareness programmes on local radio stations and a public awareness show at Eleftheria Square in Nicosia.

Akkelidou spoke of the importance of donor transplants saying that “a person giving up an organ for somebody else is showing incredible human value” while also praising the fact that Cyprus has a high number of donors per head of population.

The president of the CTA, Dr Georgos Kyriakides, said that as of 1986 when the first liver transplant was carried out on the island, there have been 603 successful donations made.

One donor told reporters how those waiting for transplants were living on borrowed time, and called on more people to sign up as donors.

Suitable organs for transplant include heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and pancreas, while tissue donations include skin, bone, eyes, veins and heart valves. Anyone registering to become a donor has a provision for any specific objections. One person donating all their organs can save seven lives, whereas a person donating both organs and tissues can help as many as 75 lives.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.