China is witnessing a rise in marrow and organ donors amid the public’s rising awareness.

In 2018, a record high of 913 donations of 130,000 hematopoietic stem cell samples were registered in the China Marrow Donor Program, bringing the total storage capacity to 2.65 million, according to data from the Red Cross Society of China.

Xiao Ning (pseudonym) was one of the hematopoietic stem cell donors. Registered in the program in 2008, she was notified of a match in 2016 and her donation was completed last May to save a leukemia patient.

“After receiving the notification, I started praying for my patient and training hard to keep fit so that my follow-up physical checkup would pass,” she said.

Others, such Li Hong (pseudonym), did not prepare to donate their organs. Li, who passed away last August while working in Shannan City, southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, got his organs donated by his wife and daughter, who said they were hoping to “let him live on in another way.”

The donation marked the first-ever case in the region. Through coordination with organ procurement organizations in other regions, the family signed the registration form to all his healthy organs. Through the distribution of China Organ Transplant Response System (COTRS), Li’s liver and one kidney were transported to Yunnan Province in southwest China and another kidney along with a pair of cornea and retina were sent to Anhui Province in eastern China, helping with the treatments of five patients.

As of March this year, over 1.16 million volunteers have been registered as organ donors in China, and more than 22,000 donations have been successfully made, treating over 65,000 patients with organ failures.

The annual donation rate per million people in China has reached 4.53 from the current 0.03 in 2010, and the annual donation ranks second in the world.