Call for advanced screening technologies in hospitals to prevent kidney disease

Islamabad: Ahmed Hassan Moughal, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) has called upon the government to equip public hospitals with advanced screening technologies to diagnose and prevent kidney disease as it was emerging as a silent killer, especially for poor and low income people.
He was addressing a seminar titled “Kidney Health for Everyone Everywhere” that was organized by ICCI in collaboration with Pakistan Kidney Center, Abbottabad to mark the World Kidney Day.
Ahmed Hassan Moughal said that government should take measures to provide facilities in hospitals for systematic screening of all patients with diabetes and hypertension for chronic kidney disease (CKD). He said that CKD was the 6thfastest growing cause of death while Pakistan was reportedly the eighth largest country with high prevalence of kidney disease causing 20 thousand deaths annually. This situation demanded that government should focus on preventive strategies to cope with the rising kidney disease.
Dr. Khalil urRehman, Nephrologist, Pakistan Kidney Center, Abbottabad gave a detailed presentation to the business community on the causes of kidney disease and its preventive measures. He said the increase in kidney disease was alarming as around 850 million people worldwide were affected with some sort of kidney diseases with around 2.4 million annual deaths.He said that CKDwas a silent killer as most of the kidney was already damaged by the time the symptoms of kidney diseases appeared.