China's deputy health minister said the prisoners would no longer be the main source for organ for transplants, the official Xinhua news agency reported late Thursday.

"China ... promises that within three to five years, it will completely change the abnormal method of relying mainly on death row inmates to obtain transplant organs," Huang Jiefu was quoted as saying.

Rights groups have criticized China for harvesting organs from prison inmates condemned to death, calling it a form of abuse and saying the condemned are pressured into giving up their organs.

Beijing has said that prisoners volunteer for the procedures.

The change was being made because prisoners have high rates of infection, which means their organs are not ideal, according to Huang.

"Therefore, the long-term survival rates for people with transplanted organs in China are always below those of people in other countries," he reportedly said.

Chinese doctors perform around 10,000 transplants per year, while over a million people there are waiting for organs.

China carries out the most executions in the world, by far. The state does not release figures. Rights groups say they number in the thousands.

ncy/sej (AP, AFP)