Doctors at Cape Town’s Groote Schuur Hospital have performed Africa’s first-ever incompatible kidney transplant on 35-year-old patient Chervon Meyer using a Glycosorb filter device, APA learnt on Tuesday.
Groote Schuur nephrologist Zunaid Barday said the Glycosorb device offered hope for Meyer and hundreds of other patients who have been on the kidney transplant list for several years.
“With this filter, we can now safely transplant many patients across incompatible blood groups – which was an absolute barrier previously,” Barday said.
Meyer said she received the kidney from her brother who is of a different blood type to save her life which changed 10 years ago following a stillbirth.
Following the stillbirth of her last child, Meyer discovered that both of her kidneys had stopped functioning, she said.
This development required her to be on a dialysis treatment three times a week at the hospital for the past decade, thereby rendering her to be unemployed.
Since its first rollout in 2001, the Glycosorb device has been used in 29 countries. However, the Groote Schuur facility is the first to perform the operation in Africa.
Groote Schuur Hospital is renowned for performing the world’s first heart transplant in 1967, with a medical team led Christiaan Barnard. The event was a major historical event and a significant breakthrough for medical science.
NM/jn/APA