Speakers at a workshop on Wednesday stressed on widespread awareness among the general people in preventing the alarming rise of harmful kidney diseases across the country. The country has about 20 million kidney patients at poresent.Referring to the unusual treatment cost and insufficient number of kidney doctors, they urged the government to take the issue actively with a view to resisting the future epidemic in kidney disease in the country. Kidney Awareness, Monitoring and Prevention Society (KAMPS) organized the workshop for the journalists styled “Harmful Kidney disease and its prevention: The role of media in creating mass awareness”, at the city’s BIAM auditorium.State Minister for Land, Saidujjaman Chowdhury (Jabed), MP, attended the workshop as the chief guest while Vice-President of the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA) Md. Abdul Mannan attended as special guest.KAMPS’ Chairman and Chief Consultant of Kidney Department, Laboratory Aid Specialised Hospital, Dhaka Professor Dr. MA Samad presented the keynote paper in the workshop while Dr. Rafiqul Abedin, Associate Professor, National Institute of Kidney Disease and Urology was designated discussant on the occasion. State Minister for Land said that now time had come to take the kidney issue very seriously by the government as well as by the affluent class and corporate bodies to spend from CSR for the activities in preventing kidney disease and also to ensure minimum level of treatment for the poor patients of rural Bangladesh. Praising KAMPS’s role in preventing kidney disease, the minister said that the organisation deserves logistic and equip mental supports in operating its routine activities.Stressing need to set up dialysis centers in the remotest parts in the country, he assured all-out cooperation from his part for KAMPS’s philanthropic activities.In his keynote paper, Professor MA Samad said that about 20 million people of the country were suffering from some sort of kidney disease and about five patients die from renal failure every hour. “The only way to keep the renal failure patient alive is dialysis or kidney transplantation. The facilities of kidney transplantation are very limited in Bangladesh. Nonetheless, dialysis treatment is so expensive that even five percent of patients cannot afford the cost. Therefore more then 90 percent patients die almost without treatment”, Dr. Samad said.He said, but these premature deaths like renal failure patients can be prevented by 60% if detected in early stages and taken appropriate measure to treat the causes. It is suggested from some data that three main causes are irresponsibility for more than 80 percent of renal failure in Bangladesh, that are glomerulus’s nephritis , Diabetes mellitus and hypertension but all are controllable with minimum costs. Diabetes is of epidemic proportion, and its prevalence will double in the next 25 years, particularly in the developing countries like Bangladesh. This will place an enormous financial burden on countries, including the cost of the management of end stage renal failure. Thus, it is medically and economically imperative for awareness, detection and prevention programs to be introduced in Bangladesh.Health sector reporters from the dailies including Bangladesh Pratidin, Jugantor, Daily Independent, Daily Sun, Daily Observer, Daily News Today, Daily New Nation, The Dhaka Tribune, Sokaler Khabar, Daily Sangbad and Daily Vorer Kagoj attended the daylong workshop. State Minister for Land distributed certificates among the journalists at the concluding session of the workshop.
