The President, Nigerian Association of Nephrology (NAN) Dr. Adanze O. Asinobi has revealed that more than 20million Nigerians are battling with chronic kidney disease.
Asinobi who spoke on Wednesday in Kano during the Association’s 35th Scientific Conference and Annual General Meeting, said, government and other stakeholders are not doing enough to address the issue.
“About 10 percent of admission in our tertiary hospitals are due to chronic kidney disease which translate to 20million Nigerians considering our 200 million population.
This is not inclusive of acute kidney disease cases and those in the rural areas who have no access to standard hospitals where they can get proper diagnosis”.
According to her, kidney disease is a huge burden on Nigeria and even world-wide with intensive cost management which demands more concerted efforts from both the government and relevant stakeholders such as the NGOs to tackle the increase.
“Due to expensive nature of treatment, we see people dying at their prime from kidney disease”.
Adanze noted that though the present administration at a time provided free six dialysis sessions for those on NHIS, it was not enough as majority of Nigerians are not on the scheme and chronic kidney disease was not even included.
She stated that the Association, cognisant to the fact that policy formulations and implementation takes time, have decided to embark on preventive measures campaigns and education.
“We know it takes time for government to make policies that will support these people, so we on our part have decided to educate the people on how to prevent themselves from this disease.
People must desist from patronizing pain killers such as the Non-Steroidal Anti-inflammatory drugs which Ibuprofen is one of them and are capable of damaging the kidney.
Pregnant women must also watch the drugs they use so as to protect their unborn babies from possible future kidney damage.
Why we fight for health insurance to be made available for the people by the government, people must take adequate preventive measures to protect themselves”, she added.
The conference theme is; Current Concepts in Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) Prevention and Management