Tamil Nadu Village Becomes Hotspot for Chronic Kidney Ailments

A village in Tamil Nadu has become a hotspot for kidney diseases after at least seven people went for a dialysis over a period of time after developing health complications. Interestingly, experts point out that the villagers did not have hypertension or high blood sugar level, which are common symptoms of a kidney patient.

A team of 62, including 40 doctors from Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai visited Sengadu village on Saturday to collect blood and urine samples from 250 residents.

The team headed by dean Dr Therani Rajan, said they will be testing all 1,500 residents in the village for kidney and other non-communicable diseases. “Seven patients from Pillayar Koil street are affected… So, we want to know why this happened and the actual prevalence of the disease in the village. We will continue to test all the residents.”

State Nodal officer for Renal Health Care and Head of Department, Nephrology, Rajiv Gandhi Hospital, Gopalakrishnan, said, “Seven patients aged between 20 and 40 years on dialysis in a village with a population of 1,500 residents definitely qualifies it for a hotspot already. Initial results show protein levels in urine are high for a couple of residents and another two of them were diagnosed with hypertension recently.”

He said Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Etiology (CKDU) can occur in a human body due to too much exposure to heat, or chemical contamination in water or any other asymptomatic infection. Srikakulam district in Andhra is an identified hotspot of CKDU in the country with thousands of patients. “Preliminary reports of experts predict presence of silica in soil could be the reason.”

Dr Dinesh, Assistant Professor, Department of Nephrology at Rajiv Gandhi Hospital, pointed out, “Unlike others, these patients though on dialysis for years continued to have good urine output. Kidney diseases are usually associated with hypertension and high sugar. But they didn’t have co-morbidities They had no breathing difficulty but have only body ache for which they take some pain killers every now and then”.

Apart from analysing these hotspots, the Tamil Nadu health department will take up the prevalence of kidney study across the state with 6,700 sample from 33 clusters.

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