KARACHI, Dec 15: The treatment cost of chronic kidney diseases has already gone up to 80 per cent of other health care budgets and the cumulative global cost for dialysis and transplantation over the next decade is predicted to exceed $1 trillion.

Prof Rana Abdul Majid, president of the Pakistan Association of Urological Surgeons, while talking to APP here on Monday, said that chronic kidney diseases represent a serious threat to public health as well as health care resources worldwide.

Observing that the cost of kidney failure treatments is escalating globally, he pointed out that over 1.5 million people were kept alive through dialysis or transplantation and this number was feared to double within the next 10 years.

“The worst bit of this whole picture is that 80 per cent of the patients benefiting from renal replacement therapy are in developed countries while only 10 per cent of such patients are in Pakistan and India,” said the senior surgeon quoting available data. In many African countries, he said, there was little or no access to renal replacement therapy.

“Since Pakistan is a third world country, it is of paramount importance that the focal point of the government’s health policy should be prevention of kidney diseases,” he said, adding: “It is more significant because kidney disease is a disease multiplier.”

Dr Rana, at present associated with the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), said that kidney diseases could be diagnosed through simple urine and blood tests and an ultrasound examination.

Highlighting the need for prevention, closely followed by timely diagnosis, the surgeon said that over 500 million — constituting 10 per cent of the adult population — suffered from some form of kidney damage. “Millions die every year from the heart disease linked to the chronic kidney diseases, he noted.

According to him, the main causes of chronic kidney diseases are uncontrolled diabetes, uncontrolled high blood pressure, infections and stones in kidney and urinary tract while presence of stones in renal tracts is a leading cause of kidney failure in children.

Kidney diseases contribute morbidity from cardiovascular problems in 12 million patients worldwide each year and the number multiplies rapidly due to high prevalence of “type 2” diabetes.

In Pakistan, he said, 60 per cent of surgeries at district hospitals related to treatment of urological diseases.

The most common causes of the diseases are malnutrition, unbalanced diet, repeated or chronic urinary tract infection, overuse of certain painkillers, etc.—APP