Reuters reports on the organ trafficking market in the Philippines.

The Department of Health said the cost of a kidney in the country was estimated at 150,000 pesos ($3,600), with the donor getting only a third of the amount while two-thirds went to middlemen.

Several Web sites offer all-inclusive “transplant packages”, ranging from $70,000 to $160,000, the WHO said in a study last year.

The same WHO study showed increases in the number of foreign recipients in Pakistan and in the Philippines, where 110 out of 468 kidney transplants in 2003 were to patients from abroad.

Havocscope is listing the market in organ trafficking to be at least $50 million.