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From people in comas waking up to diseases vanishing, medical miracles happen every day. But some doctors are advancing the methods we use to get needed organs. According to the New York Times, surgeons in New York City successfully attached a kidney grown inside a pig to a patient.

The unidentified patient apparently suffered from brain death. They were a registered organ donor. However, none of their organs were “suitable” for transplant. This patient’s body was used for research after the family gave their permission.

The Surgery 

While on a ventilator, the pig kidney was attached to blood vessels in the upper leg of the patient and covered with a shield. It functioned as it should. The kidney received the blood and processed urine and waste product creatinine  “almost immediately.” The surgery took place in September and the organ was studied for 54 hours.

The kidney was sourced from a pig genetically engineered to grow human organs that won’t be rejected by the human body. Xenotransplantation is the word for the medical procedure that took place. Per the Food & Drug Administration, this procedure “involves the transplantation, implantation or infusion”  of “live cells, tissues or organs from a nonhuman animal source.”

Transplants Needed

Scientists have been working overtime to find new ways to tackle the large demand for organ transplants. Estimates show that more than 100,000 Americans are waiting to receive organs from transplant lists. About 90,240 people on the list need kidneys.

Robert Montgomery, who is the head of the Langone Health’s Transplant Institute at New York University, performed the recent kidney surgery.

“The field up to now has been stuck in the preclinical primate stage, because going from primate to living human is perceived as a big jump,” Dr. Montgomery said.

Why Pigs?

According to Vice, he received a $3.2 million grant from United Therapeutics to fund the medical project. The Maryland-based pharmaceutical company focuses on developing “novel pharmaceutical therapies” and “technologies that expand the availability of transplantable organs.”

Pigs are apparently a great match for organ procurement. NY Times reports that they’re “easier to raise, reach maturation faster, and achieve adult human size in six months.” Moreover, humans are not unfamiliar to using pig body parts. Medical procedures have previously used pig heart values, pig pancreas cells and pig skin.

Although the idea might be off-putting to some, United Therapeutics’ CEO  Martine Rothblatt doesn’t think so.

“Weird does not mean unethical. There’s a 45-degree line on a graph—as long as the utility exceeds the yuckiness, social acceptance wins,” Martine said. “Taking organs from dead people and putting them in living people once seemed weird, it’s not weird anymore. It would be stupid to abjure nature’s greatest invention since chemistry.”

The Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) has rescinded its decision not to pay public sector workers if they do not have a Ghana card.

Government workers risked forfeiting their December 2021 salaries per an initial directive from the CAGD.

The move was said to be part of the government of Ghana’s efforts to deliver a speedy, secured, and verified payroll service to government employees and pensioners while reducing the risk of undeserving payments or claims.

But the government through consultations with the Ministries of Employment and Labour Relations,  Finance, and the Account General have backtracked over concerns raised by labour unions.

In a communiqué issued after a joint meeting on Tuesday, October 19, 2021, the two Ministries have asked the CAGD to “port the names of public sector workers in their existing databases onto the NIA platform and thereafter inform the various institutions of any unregistered staff that may exist.”

With this latest intervention, the December ultimatum given to workers on the government payroll to acquire Ghana cards before receiving their pay is no longer going to take effect.

However, state institutions have been advised to encourage their staff members to register with the National Identification Authority (NIA) to secure the Ghana card as soon as possible.

There have been agitations by a section of government workers and unions since the Department issued the directive on Tuesday, October 12, 2021, with some asking the Controller and Accountant-General to reconsider the directive and withdraw it completely or have the deadline extended.

According to organized labour, the NIA should bear the responsibility of capturing government workers on its database and not compel them to secure the cards.

They insisted that the decision is a lazy approach towards addressing lapses in the government’s payroll system.

The National Identification Authority however justified the directive, saying, it is a step in the right direction.

Earlier, the CAGD said it will not withdraw its directive.

We Will Love You To Join Our Over 170k Members Instagram Family With Just One Click @gharticles

Source: GhArticles.com