THE Philippine health authority yesterday announced a total ban on kidney donations to foreigners to prevent the Philippines from becoming a major Asian center in an already thriving black-market trade.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said at a press briefing that the new policy was based on a presidential directive to enforce the total ban and was aimed at “protecting the poor from the black market sale of internal organs.”

The policy likewise coincides with World Health Organization resolutions strongly discouraging arrangements that encourage the trafficking of human organs.

Extensive kidney trading involving impoverished Filipinos and prisoners — who sell their organs for paltry sums to syndicates catering mostly to foreign clients — has been reported by the local media in recent years. A temporary ban on kidney transplants involving foreigners was recently imposed.

The sale of organs is illegal in the Philippines. The ban — intended to protect poor Filipinos from exploitation — will prohibit foreigners from getting donated kidneys unless they can prove a donor is related to them by blood, Duque said.(SD-Agencies)