Zheng Qingbo, 23, a university graduate beginning his first job in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, on Wednesday became the first registered volunteer organ donor after the city passed the relevant regulations on the donation and transplant of human organs.

Zheng is a biological engineering major and graduated from the Central China University of Technology. He has worked in Shenzhen for just two months.

On Wednesday morning he filled out a donation registration in five minutes, to donate his corneas at the Red Cross of Shenzhen.

Zhao Lizhen, secretary general of the Red Cross in Shenzhen, said that before the passing of the regulations, six citizens had volunteered to contribute their bodies after death, 26 citizens had vowed to give their corneas and 6,600 elected to donate bone marrow. Of the marrow donors, 19 had already made donations.

Although the detailed content of the regulations had not been made public, Zhao said, the Red Cross was working to set up a platform to promote the donation and transplant of human organs.

Registered information on donors and receivers will be electronically recorded in strict order of registration, and patients who need an organ will have to wait their turn. To ensure a legal process of human organ donation and transplant, donors and receivers will never know each other's information.

(Xinhua News Agency August 28, 2003)