DILG-AstraZeneca program offers free testing for kidney disease

EARLY DETECTION IS KEY Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos and former Diabetes Philippines president Dr. Francis Pasaporte inspect the machines to be donated to 12 provinces—Quirino,
Aurora, Cavite, Quezon, Sorsogon, Samar, Capiz, Iloilo, Cebu, Zamboanga del Norte, Agusan del Sur and Sarangani—under the ACT NOW for CKD program. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has entered into a partnership with a pharmaceutical company and other health service groups to provide free testing for people who may be suffering from chronic kidney disease (CKD) in 12 selected provinces.

Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos and Lotis Ramin, country president of UK-based AstraZeneca, signed a memorandum of understanding on Thursday for the program “ACT NOW for CKD,” which stands for Addressing Complications Today through Network of Warriors for Chronic Kidney Disease.

The program stresses the importance of making an early detection of CKD, which the Department of Health cites as the fourth leading cause of death in the country.

Costly dialysis

The World Health Organization also reported that in 2020 alone, kidney-related deaths in the Philippines reached 39,380.

Abalos said CKD currently afflicts an estimated 2.3 million Filipinos, and that records from Philippine Health Insurance Corp. showed that about P17 billion is spent on dialysis treatments each year.

“The statistics do not lie. The numbers are alarming,” he said. “If we are not going to do anything about this, soon one out of eight Filipinos will be suffering from CKD.”

“I do believe that local government units can make a difference here—from the governors and the mayors, down to the barangay health workers,” Abalos said.

The free screening component of the program will cover the provinces of Quirino, Aurora, Quezon, Cavite, and Sorsogon in Luzon; Iloilo, Capiz, Cebu, and Samar in the Visayas; and Zamboanga del Norte, Sarangani, and Agusan del Sur in Mindanao.

Each province will receive a uACR (urine albumin-creatinine ratio) test machine, which can be used for up to 20,000 patients.

Aside from AstraZeneca, other partners of the initiative include Diabetes Philippines, the Philippine Association of Diabetes Educators, and the Association of Diabetes Nurse Educators of the Philippines.

READ: PhilHealth expands dialysis coverage to 144 sessions