More than 1,500 people registered as organ donors upon death during a three-day awareness campaign that kicked off on Feb. 23 across different malls in Jeddah.

The awareness campaign was organized by an educational awareness committee and the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation (SCOT) to highlight the importance of organ donation in saving hundreds of lives.

Dr. Lilla Barakati, the campaign’s superviser and organizer, said that the number of campaign participants was significantly higher than in previous years.

Barakati also said that 7,822 operations were carried out for kidney transplantation last year alone, of which 2,467 were kidney transplants. A total of 622 life-saving surgeries were performed in 2013.

In addition, 1,240 liver transplants were carried out, of which 671 took place after donors were pronounced brain dead and 569 through relatives who had agreed to donate an organ while still alive.

A total of 228 heart transplants and 564 heart operations were carried out for repairing heart valves, besides 663 corneal transplantations and 80 lung transplants in a single year. The Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation has 14,171 patients on its database who are in urgent need of dialysis.

Of these patients, 12,844 are being treated for vessel filtration, indicating the need for life-long dialysis treatment.