CDK Prevalent among Females, Mestizos, Obese Persons
Back in 2016, the Ministry of Health signed a cooperation agreement with Taiwan for prevention and control of chronic kidney disease. The agreement makes available expertise in health education, disease screening and training for medical personnel. As a part of the initiative, medical workers were trained to strengthen the screening programme for high-risk persons with kidney disease and carried out a survey to find out the prevalence and the risk factors associated to address this growing disease in Belize. Today, the Ministry of Health and Taiwan released the findings of the survey and shared successes of this programme. Reporter Andrea Polanco attended today’s forum and shares the findings of the survey.
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
Chronic Kidney Disease is a progressive loss of kidney function. When kidney disease progresses, it may lead to kidney failure. The two main causes are diabetes and hypertension. But tests can show early signs of kidney malfunction. The Ministry of Health says the data on this disease in Belize is cause for concern.
Ramon Figueroa
Dr. Ramon Figueroa, C.E.O., Ministry of Health
“It is worrisome that you have a lot of people early have evidence that there is evidence of kidney malfunction. It is not surprising that diabetes and hypertension are causes because it has been shown in the literature that these are very important risk factors. We also know diabetes is pretty prevalent in Belize, so it is not surprising in a sense. Probably what is surprising is that you can detect it from early on that there is already evidence of kidney malfunction so if we can address that from very early on, if people come in to clinic and they detect some risk factors, then we can do interventions early on.”
Those interventions can help save patients from costly and painful hemodialysis, or help to delay the onset of end stage renal failure. And that is one of the goals of the Belize –Taiwan Cooperation on the Prevention and Control of Chronic Kidney Disease. As a part of this partnership, a little over ten-thousand persons between the age of twenty and fifty-five answered a questionnaire; from that number seven-thousand five-hundred and six persons were screened. That report shows a higher prevalence of chronic kidney disease among females than males. According to the numbers, the disease is more prevalent in the older end of the age group of fifty to fifty-year olds. It also highlighted that the risk factors and signs of the disease were more common among mestizos – with the signs less common among Mayas out of all the ethnic groups screened. The two districts with the highest prevalence rate are Orange Walk and Corozal – with Orange Walk at nineteen point three percent more than double the prevalence rate of eight point eight percent in Toledo. The report also highlighted that, as expected, CKD was higher among persons with diabetes, gout, and hypertension, respectively.
Dr. Ramon Figueroa
“Now we can give you figures in terms of how many people with diabetes eventually develop kidney damage; hypertension, hyperlipidemia. I think women are more vulnerable or at least show a higher prevalence of renal damage. Up north, it was one of the areas we identified where more people demonstrated factors or information indicating that they have renal damage. Why up north? We don’t know at this time. And that is why I am saying the data is still being analyzed to look at why people in the north demonstrate higher risk.”
Another big risk factor is obesity. The study shows that almost fifty-percent of the respondents are obese. One in six persons between twenty and fifty-year-olds has chronic kidney disease. The data also shows that persons who are obese are more likely to develop kidney malfunction than a person who isn’t obese. So, what can you do to prevent chronic kidney disease? Health officials say that you must drink more water; eat fruits and vegetables everyday; limit sugar and salt intake; get more active – run, ride; stop smoking and drinking alcohol; and those who have diabetes and high blood pressure must get more frequent medical check-ups – but everyone should visit their doctors yearly. And now with early screenings available and nine specially trained medical professionals working within the health system, the Ministry of Health hopes that in the longer run there will be fewer Belizeans suffering kidney failure.
Dr. Ramon Figueroa
“I will say that is exactly what we want to achieve and that is something that we will be monitoring. From the mere fact that we can identify risk factors, we want to we want to develop educational programs to try convince and sensitize people what are these risk factors; nutrition, healthy lifestyle. But we also want to be able to detect people who begin to show signs. Remember when people come in to the system it is because they already require hemodialysis. It is at the late stage when you really can’t do much to prevent them from giving to into a hemodialysis program. What we want to do is to be able to identify through, and that is why we have developed the Health Information System and train our physicians to be able to do the proper test early on and the system itself will flag those who are showing signs, let’s say protein in the urine early on; if they have hyperlipidemia we already know that might be a risk factor; if they are diabetic then we have be a little more careful in terms of monitoring kidney function to target those individuals.”
Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.
