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The Food and Drug Administration Has Begun to Allocate Cadaveric Skin to Hospitals

  • Data Source:Ministry of Health and Welfare
  • Created:2015-07-05
  • Last Updated:2017-01-11

The Medical Expert Advisory Group of the Ministry of Health and Welfare for the Formosa Fun Coast Dust Explosion convened a second meeting on the morning of July 5, 2015 and reached consensus regarding a cadaveric skin allocation procedure. As a result, in the same afternoon, the Food and Drug Administration (hereinafter to be referred to as FDA) began allocating two batches of cadaveric skin (a total of 120,000 square centimeters) which had arrived in Taiwan on July 3 and 4, 2015. 

The first allocation was based on the proportion to the "total burned area of patients" reported by the hospitals with slight adaptations between hospitals adjusted by the Society of Plastic Surgery according to its expertise. Later, cadaveric skin was efficiently allocated based on the distribution of thepatients' combined burned areas reported by the hospitals and the number of patients that are undergoing surgical debridement day by day. After the calculated sums and the slight adaptations are done (dynamically), cadaveric skin is allocated and dispatched to each hospital. 



After undergoing burned skin surgical debridement, other than cadaveric skin that is used as surgical dressing for covering the burned skin, advanced synthetic dressing and artificial dermis can be used jointly to provide patients with the most suitable treatment. Yesterday the FDA compiled all the inventory of related medical accessories, including artificial dermis and artificial dressing. It also made an enquiry to medical accessory industries to ensure they have ample supplies at the present. It will continually monitor sources of medical accessories around the world to accommodate the needs of the Dust Explosion patients for their surgeries. Additionally, on the evening of July 5, 2015, the third batch of cadaveric skin (about 120,000 square centimeters) is scheduled to arrive in Taiwan from the US.