Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Clinical
Sciences, Lagos State University College of Medicine, Jacob Olugbenga
Awobusuyi, has ranked hypertension and diabetes as highest causes of kidney
disease.
Awobusuyi made the disclosure while delivering the 72nd
Inaugural Lecture of the Lagos State University at the main campus in Ojo on
Tuesday.
The title of the lecture, “The body is the hero: The Expedition of a
Guardian of Troubled Kidney Through the Valley of Death.
Awobusuyi said “There two major Causes of kidney disease in our society,
hypertension and diabetes, the other thing, you must eat a healthy diet, you
must live a healthy lifestyle, and you must be conscious of your health, if you
are above 40, I will advise you to regularly go for screening, so that the
disease can be detected and treated as early as possible.”
On how government can come in the treatment of kidney disease, he said
that government can provide some form of health insurance coverage for people
with kidney disease as it is being done in developed countries
“They can help by getting a number of centres to be more active, to be
well quipped, and to be well staffed, we need these to ensure those centres
function properly. They can also subsidise the drugs for the treatment of
kidney disease,” he advised.
He said that quite unlike what a lot of people believe in, that it is the
heart that does all the work, “The kidney does so much work, keeping us alive,
and keeping us healthy, I thought I should give the topic of my inaugural
lecture, the kidney is the hero as a symbol of the kidney to connote its
powers, functions and the fact that it is there keeping us alive, maintain
health 24/7 without rest”
He said all other organs are equally important
The Professor said Kidney failure is expensive to treat, “If you are on
dialysis, and you want to do it regularly, you will be spending close to half a
million monthly on the treatment; except those that work in banks,
multinational oil companies, and those who have inherited wealth, most people
cannot afford dialysis, they cannot afford transplantation, transplantation
cost about 8 million and you need money to maintain the drugs, and that is why
we are creating awareness and this lecture is also meant to create awareness and
see if government can respond to our cries.
“All over the world individuals don’t sustain kidney treatments,
government comes in even in some African countries, in developed countries
government plays substantial roles in the treatment of kidney disease,” he
stated. \
Quoting 2010 Global Burden of Disease study, chronic kidney disease
ranked 27th in the list of causes of total number of global deaths in 1990
(age-standardised annual death rate of 15.7 per 100 000) but rose to 18th in
2010 (annual death rate 16.3 per 100 000).” By the 2012 WHO global health
estimates, 864 226 deaths (0r1-5°o of deaths worldwide) were attributable to
this condition, ranking it fourteenth in the list of leading causes of death.
Since 1990, only deaths from complications of HIV infection have
increased at a faster rate than deaths from CKD. Projections from the Global
Health Observatory suggest that although the death rate from HIV will decrease
in the next 15 years, the death rate from CKD will continue to increase. CKD is
also associated with Substantial morbidity.
Worldwide, 850 million people are now estimated to have kidney diseases
from various causes and Chronic kidney disease causes at least 2.4 million
deaths per year and is now the 6th fastest growing cause of death. The figures
we currently have on Chronic Kidney Disease may probably reflect a view of the
tip of the iceberg. Many individuals with CKD are undiagnosed especially in the
developing countries of the world.
In Nigeria, the picture is frightening. Although information available on
the burden of kidney disease is fragmentary and sometimes inconsistent, the
estimated prevalence of kidney disease in single community surveys ranges from
between 11.4% to 26%, depending on the composition of the community studied and
the method of data collection
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