The recent dismal reports in some Nigerian
tabloids on the high rate of the incidence of
kidney diseases are frightening, especially
because they concern the productive sector of
the country’s demography: the youth.
Incidentally and unfortunately, the affected
group can barely handle the cost of seeking
medical relief and, for the most part, they are
left with two dire choices: to despair or die.

A nephrologist was quoted in the report as
saying that “we estimate that we get about
15,000 new patients with chronic kidney disease
every year. About 50,000 patients in Nigeria
require dialysis, but just 1,000 are on it as we
speak. The prevalence rate of kidney failure in
Nigeria is 15 per cent and this is high in every
sense.”

Of course, the expert could only refer to the
figures of reported cases because the difference
between sufferers and reported cases accounts
for many people who die from lack of
appropriate care, which is usually induced by
poverty and ignorance. There are also many
other cases that are being handled, though
inexpertly, by alternative care givers which may
have escaped the quoted statistics. There are
also many heart-rending stories of punctuated
lives and suspended hopes that probably could
have been different if the context had been
altered by solid public health policy and
education.

The sufferers’ need for medical intervention and
relief, both of which are prohibitive in terms of
cost, has made the country’s dailies to become
usually inundated with solicitous articles
appealing on their behalf to philanthropists for
financial assistance. To an extent, some
philanthropists have tried to assist many of
these sufferers, but the truth is that it is clearly
the function of the state to protect life and
property.

It is meet and proper to expect the state to find
out the reason for the prevalence of kidney
diseases through research and thereafter find
how the national problem as identified can be
solved. If experts have concluded that the
prevalence rate is high then it naturally behoves
the state to intervene meaningfully through
funding and massive public education to reduce
this prevalence rate.

Both lifestyle and other diseases like HIV,
hypertension and diabetes are implicated in the
prevalence of chronic kidney diseases. The
resort to herbal cleansers and various analgesics
that are not on doctors’ prescription have also
aggravated the situation of renal failure in the...


CONTINUITY HERE : www.beriahng.com/2015/04/rising-cases-of-kidney-failure-among.html?