19 kidney transplants carried out in Cyprus since the start of the year

Since the beginning of 2026, 19 kidney transplant operations have been carried out in Cyprus. Several more transplants are planned by the end of the year. The announcement was made by Andreas Soloukidis, deputy director of the Nephrology Department and head of the Transplant Clinic at Nicosia General Hospital, and vice-chairman of the Cyprus Transplant Council.

According to him, the island has an average of around 10 deceased donors each year. The Transplant Council is now seeking to increase the number of potential donors and improve Cyprus’s position in the European rankings.

At the same time, Cyprus ranks highly in Europe in terms of the number of living donors. The specialist placed particular emphasis on Cyprus’s cooperation with Greece and Israel in the field of organ transplantation. Organs that cannot be transplanted on the island because of Cyprus’s small population are primarily transferred to Greece’s National Transplant Organisation, and, if there is no suitable recipient, to Israel. In some cases, organs are allocated through European systems.

The cooperation also enables Cypriot patients to receive transplants abroad. Patients requiring heart or lung transplants can be placed on waiting lists in Greece and Israel.

A kidney paired-exchange programme with Israel is also being developed. It involves pairs in which a donor is willing to give a kidney to a close relative, but there is no medical compatibility between them. A special system identifies compatible pairs for exchange. Over the past three years, seven pairs from Cyprus have received transplants through the programme.

A recent case involving the organ donation of a young Cypriot woman who died in a road accident became an example of such international coordination. The woman’s organs were donated to five patients: her lungs were sent to Greece, her heart to Israel, her liver to Thessaloniki, while her two kidneys were transplanted into patients in Cyprus. According to the doctor, all five recipients are doing well.

According to Soloukidis, cooperation between Cyprus, Greece and Israel is reciprocal and makes it possible to use available organs as efficiently as possible—organs that might otherwise have gone unused.