Jakarta, The Indonesia Post – The Indonesian Minister of Health, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, stated that the biggest risk factor for the death of patients with acute kidney disease in Indonesia was poisoning from the chemical compounds Ethylon Glycol (EG) and Diethylon Glycol (DEG) which exceeded the safe standards for drugs.
“Our position at the Ministry of Health is clear that the biggest risk factor for acute kidney disease is EG and DEG compounds that exceed the standards taken by children,” he said at a Working Meeting with Commission IX of the DPR which was followed online in Jakarta, Wednesday.
According to him, other factors that have a small chance of triggering acute kidney disorders are infection, genetic disorders, severe dehydration, blood loss.
According to Budi, cases of acute kidney failure in Indonesia always occur every year.
“But because the numbers are not large, it becomes the same incidence as any other disease,” he said.
Based on reports from the Ministry of Health since early 2022, cases of acute kidney disorders have reached an average of one to two patients per month. The number of cases began to jump at the end of August 2022 to reach 35 patients.
“At that time, around 50 percent of the cases died in August, so that in September 2022, we started to move on to investigate the cases,” he said.
He explained that the report on the spike in cases was obtained by the Ministry of Health from reports from the Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital (RSCM) Jakarta as a national reference for kidney patients.
“Actually, the information on the surge started from the RSCM as our monitoring system. This is starting to be unnatural, there is a high increase,” he said.
The search for causes of acute kidney disorders begins with a laboratory analysis of pathology for viruses and bacteria. However, all of them have an accuracy rate ranging from 0-7 percent.
“We just got a trigger, so there was a similar incident in Gambia, Africa on October 5, 2022, and that was the cause of drug poisoning,” he said.
From the results of blood tests of patients in Indonesia, said Budi, 74 percent were caused by drug poisoning caused by EG and DEG, the same as in Gambia. More than 50 percent of patients have kidney-damaging compounds in their blood.
“We did a biopsy, the patient was confirmed to have died from the influence of EG and DEG and we gave antidote to EG and DEG, confirmed to be effective,” he said.
The statement is also to convince the public that the government’s attitude towards the factors causing acute kidney disorders is triggered by the biggest factor of drug poisoning, said Budi. (mhn/bbs)
Comment