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Kidney swap: The story ends on a happy note

After a year-long wait, Rajasthani couple and Kenyan siblings get a chance at organ donation

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The day’s procedure was as smooth as the Khokars and Githinjis had hoped it would be ever since they began their search for the right donor. After a year-long wait, doctors in the city successfully completed the country’s first international kidney swap transplant between a Kenyan and a Rajasthani family on Tuesday.

Husband-wife duo Aarif and Sabira Khokar as well as Kenyan siblings Esther and Ann Githinji had been locked in a battle for a year with the government to get a nod for the transplant. They hit a wall after government agencies, quoting complex laws on transplant surgeries, claimed that there was no legal provision to permit such a swap.

On March 14, dna had highlighted in a report, Unending wait for kidney, and life, how the country’s laws were posing a hurdle to India’s first international organ swap surgery. Things began to look up when the Rajasthan government issued a no-objection certificate for the procedure on March 18.

All loose ends tied up on Tuesday when Ann donated a kidney to Aarif at BSES Hospital in Mumbai and Sabira did the same for Esther at the Hinduja Hospital. Both patients are doing well.
Aarif, 35, and Sabira, 30, had met Esther, 33, and Ann, 35, as well as their mother, Agnes, 60, at a suburban dialysis centre. Esther was diagnosed with chronic renal failure in 2003 and body rejected Agnes’ kidney. Although Ann was a prospective donor, her kidney could not be used. “But Sabira’s kidney was a perfect match for Esther,” says Dr Jatin Kothari, nephrologist at Hinduja Hospital.

Sabira could donate a kidney to Aarif, who was diagnosed with the same condition as Esther 10 months ago. But it soon became clear that through a swap transplant, she could save two lives.

@Santosh_Andhale

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