China's Health Ministry is starting the government's first nationwide organ donation program to discourage the practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners, as reported.

The report also added that this program will be carried out in collaboration with the Red Cross Society of China by creating a database of potential donors who can stipulate that their organs should be donated after death.

It was recently disclosed that until now 65 percent of the organs were donated by executed prisoners and the vice minister of health, Huang Jiefu, said that it was not a proper source for organ transplant. China conducts the highest judicial executions in the world.

The executed prisoners are made to undergo extensive blood tests to enable the doctors to find matches for suitable donors. Although these prisoners are said to have given their consent for organ transplant after their executions but it is hard to believe that they give an informed consent.

The new database has been proposed to make organs available to the 1 million Chinese waiting for transplants. This will be launched in some areas of China first, including Shanghai, followed by a worldwide coverage.