Kidney Patients Should Get Vaccine Priority Say Experts

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About 50,000 Malaysians are living on dialysis or have a functioning kidney transplant, according to medical societies. (Bernama pic)KUALA LUMPUR: The government has been urged to give priority to patients with chronic kidney disease in its Covid-19 vaccination programme.
The call was jointly made by National Kidney Foundation chairman Dr Zaki Morad, Malaysian Society of Nephrology president Prof Dr Abdul Halim Abdul Gafor and Malaysian Society of Transplantation president Dr Rosnawati Yahya.
They said vaccinating the kidney disease patients would help reduce overcrowding in health ministry haemodialysis centres and help return some normality to centres run by private organisations.
Priority should be given to groups such as patients on haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis, patients with functioning kidney transplants and patients with CKD stage 3-4 (pre-dialysis).
The trio said they were concerned about the impact of Covid-19 infection on patients with CKD, especially those with CKD stage 5 who are receiving treatment with dialysis or kidney transplantation.
“Experience worldwide has shown this group of patients are very vulnerable to serious complications of Covid-19 infection and there is significant mortality among those infected.
“Similarly, there is an increased risk of healthcare workers attending to these patients acquiring this infection due to frequent encounters,” they said.
They said there are now about 50,000 patients living on dialysis or have a functioning kidney transplant in the country, with the vast majority of them on haemodialysis.
The experts said another concern was the huge financial impact on a patient and his family, and the staff and management of dialysis centres once a Covid-19 infection happens. - FMT

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