MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE) A health official on Monday said the Department of Health (DoH) might announce Tuesday a total ban on kidney transplants for foreigners as a move to discourage the sale of organs by the poor in the country.

Health Undersecretary Alexander Padilla said the ban has always been a consideration for the DoH and would be “nothing new.”

Padilla pointed out that the World Health Organization (WHO) and other local concerned groups have always been for the prohibition of kidney transplants for foreigners.

“The ban would only be formalized. The secretary [Francisco Duque III] might announce it during our executive committee meeting but I understand that the Philippine Board for Organ Donation and Transplantation has come up with such a resolution [for the total ban],” Padilla told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net) in an interview.

The total ban would form part of the national policy on kidney transplants.

Previously, several hospitals and surgeons voluntarily undertook a moratorium on kidney transplants on foreign patients in support of the provisions of the administrative order issued by Duque setting the guidelines on kidney transplants.

To remove the perception of the international community of the country’s being a kidney source and transplant capital, the DoH has likewise issued a cease and desist order and threatened to cancel accreditation of hospitals around the country found commercializing organ transplants.

The Philippines is a world "hotspot" for human organ trafficking, according to the Philippine Society of Nephrology, whose members are renal specialists.

The provisions of the administrative order prohibit payment as a precondition for kidney donation where Filipino recipients are given priority in the donor allocation. Access to kidneys from local donors to foreign patients are strictly limited under the same directive to discourage the sale of kidneys by the needy who may not be aware of the effects of donation.

The medical profession and the dominant Roman Catholic church have raised concerns over the rampant trafficking of kidneys from impoverished and poorly educated Filipino "donors."

They can sell one of the organs for about 3,000 dollars to Arab or Western recipients.

A total of 436 kidney transplants from unrelated living donors were carried out in 2006 in 24 Philippine hospitals, according to government figures.

In that same period there were 36 transplants from deceased donors.