Widely-used kidney function tests underestimate scale of kidney disease in Africa (VIDEO)
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A commonly used blood test which measures how well a person’s kidneys are working may not pick up kidney disease for people in Africa. This means that many people could miss early diagnosis and life-saving treatment. A study, titled Measurement of kidney function in Malawi, South Africa, and Uganda: a multicentre cohort study and published in The Lancet Global Health on 13 July 2022, was the largest study to analyse kidney disease testing and prevalence in Africa. The findings suggest that methods developed in high-income settings to check kidney function are not accurate for many people in Africa. Researchers from the African Research on Kidney Disease (ARK) Consortium ran the study, which focused on more than 2 500 people in Malawi, South Africa and Uganda.
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University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
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