Nairobi — Concerned about the rapid expansion of trade in human organs, the United Nations and the Council of Europe are now pushing for the formulation of an international convention to combat this organised crime.

They are focusing on Africa and other developing countries where the trade on human kidneys, livers and tissues like cornea thrives.

Among these organs, the kidney is in greatest demand because it is one of the major organs that can be transplanted with fewer risks to the living donor.

Studies show that more than 10 per cent of all transplant organs are from the black market.

Donors are flown or harvested organs exported to developed countries in a very organised manner that make it difficult for the authorities to smell a rat.

Kenya and other African countries are said to be easy targets because of the high poverty and lack of strict laws regulating the sale of human organs.

Local doctors admit that the Kenyan law on donations and use of human tissues is not well defined and comprehensive.

The Human Tissue Act Cap 252 enacted in 1967 has not been revised and provisions touch largely on the use of body parts of a deceased person for therapeutic purposes.

"The situation is so critical with demand for organs at Kenyatta Hospital outstripping the supply. Getting someone to donate an organ is so difficult leave alone getting one that will match with your system," says a local doctor who sought anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Indeed, some of the hundreds of patients on the waiting list for kidney transplants or with heart ailments die before receiving the organs or being attended to. It is these desperate patients who are becoming easy targets for criminals ready to find and sell such organs to them.

A recent study commissioned by the UN and Council of Europe and conducted by Centre for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania says rich people from wealthier nations are leaving their countries to go to Africa, Asia and South America for what its terms as "transplant tourism".

These rich individuals or people looking for the organs are said to pay huge sums of money, a fraction of which ends up with the person selling the organ. A kidney, for example, can fetch over Sh1 million with sellers getting a third of the money.

The rest is pocketed by brokers and a chain of individuals involved in this illegal business.

Released two weeks ago, the study wants the international community to take strong action against this underground business, which is responsible for deaths or loss in quality of life of victims.

In 2008, the definition of organ trafficking was broadened to help countries deal with those behind the trade.

The Declaration of Istanbul on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism, 2008, defines organ trafficking as the recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring or receipt of living or deceased persons or their organs by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability.

It also includes the giving to, or the receiving by, a third party of payments or benefits to achieve the transfer of control over the potential donor, for the purpose of exploitation by the removal of organs for transplantation.

In Kenya and other African countries like Mozambique, it is easy to get poor people to sell a kidney on voluntary basis. But there are many instances where people are coerced or forced to part with their kidneys, livers and pancreas for sale.

Unlike the kidney or the cornea which can be removed, leaving the person to survive on the remaining one, harvesting of liver, pancreas or heart leads to death. That is why those involved in this business are known to kidnap and kill their victims to get access to these organs.

Although local doctors say the business is likely to be taking place in Kenya, they are unable to point out which hospitals and individuals are involved.

A doctor at a leading hospital in the city said they had been approached by some people willing to sell their kidneys.

"We have always turned them down because the law does not allow us to buy or be part of a business that transacts human organs."

In 1991, the World Health Organisation (WHO) certified a raft of principles designed to help countries deal with human organ transplantation. One of the highlights of the principles is the prohibition of giving or receiving money for an organ or getting it from a minor.

However, the loophole is that this prohibition does not affect payment of expenditures incurred in organ recovery, and preservation and supply. Organ sellers have exploited this loophole.

South Africa, one the countries said to be the destination of illegal organ transplants, has banned trade in human organs. But such moves have succeeded in pushing the organ business underground.