There has been a substantial rise in the number of people who have donated their organs for transplant operations, the National Transplant Organization (NTO) said yesterday.

By this time last year, there had been 78 transplant operations in Greece, thanks to organs donated by 36 people. This year, there have been 117 transplant operations that were made possible by 61 donors.

The NTO recently praised the decision of the father of Doujon Zammit, the 20-year-old Australian tourist killed on Myconos, to donate his son’s organs. They were used to save the lives of four people.

Greece has one of the lowest organ donation rates in Europe with just eight donors per million of the population. The apparent rise in the number of donors bucks a recent trend, which saw donations drop in recent years.

The average waiting time for a transplant in Greece is six years. There are some 900 people on waiting lists.