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Emily Thackray, left, and Emma Harris

Campaigner Emma Harris is celebrating after their drive to highlight the chronic shortage of organ donors was given charitable status.

Miss Harris, of Pewsey and fellow sufferer Emily Thackray, 24, from Ewell, Surreyboth have cystic fibrosis , the UK's most common life-threatening genetic disease which affects various organs of the body, in particular the lungs and the digestive system.

The average life expectancy of a CF sufferer in the UK is just 31 years old, with the majority of deaths caused by progressive lung damage.

In 2005, Miss Thackray joined thousands of other people in the UK on the transplant waiting list.

But faced with a 50 per cent chance of dying while waiting for a transplant due to the lack of donors, she and Emma decided to take matters into their own hands and launched the Live Life then Give Life campaign in 2006.

Since then she has received a life-saving double lung transplant and the campaign has grown beyond all expectations with high-profile support from celebrities including Richard and Judy, Kerry Katona, Bill Bailey and John Terry.

The pair have now taken on four other young people - all of whom have been personally affected by the shortage of donors, to help run the new charity.

Miss Thackray said: I am only alive today because someone out there not only made the decision to donate, but then took the time to sign up to the organ donor register. I remember my donor with every breath I take and have accomplished a million and one things I never thought I'd be able to do.

The fact that we have been given charitable status means more to me than I can explain; we have always had the passion, the drive and the motivation to change the current state of organ donation in the UK, and now we have the means.''

10:42am Wednesday 2nd April 2008

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