(Photo/Xinhua)

China has become the world’s second largest country of organ donation and transplant in 2018, Wuhan Evening News reported Thursday.

By the end of 2018, China recorded 21,000 cases of posthumous organ donation and more than 60,000 transplant operations, with over 58,000 major organs donated, according to the country’s health authority.

Further data from the China Organ Donation Administrative Center showed that more than 992,000 voluntary organ donors had registered across the country by the end of January this year.

In 2018 alone, China saw more than 6,300 posthumous organ donation cases with 182 qualified hospitals conducting 20,201 organ transplant operations, an increase of 21 percent year on year.

Huang Jiefu, director of the China National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee, said that China would cover transplants of major organs such as kidney, liver and heart with health insurance before 2020.