What has been the impact of your ISN Clinical Research Project?
We found high prevalence of CKDu in this rural area of Sri Lanka, which lies outside the traditional hot spots of the disease. We identified several risk factors including cadmium as significant associations of the disease. We were able to educate the residents, mostly farmers involved with paddy and sugar cane cultivation, about the disease, its implications and methods of prevention. We were also able to sensitize the local health officials and administrators about the disease. The findings were presented as a poster at the World Congress of Nephrology 2019 in Melbourne. The poster was awarded the second prize among all the presentations made under the categories of ISN Sister Centre and Clinical Research Programs.
What does the future look like?
We are in the final stages of preparing the manuscript for publication. We intend to use our findings to influence the policy makers to allocate more resources to this area to mitigate the disease. We are planning to conduct a larger study in the area in order to understand the burden and the distribution of the disease.