Doctors and experts at a roundtable here yesterday said Bangladesh has all necessary facilities for the treatment of kidney diseases.

They said since all the required facilities are available at home there is no need to go to India, Pakistan, Singapore and other countries for kidney treatment.

The roundtable titled 'Prevention of kidney disease: Role of media in creating awareness' was organised jointly by the Amar Desh and Kidney Awareness, Monitoring and Prevention Society (Kamps) at the National Press Club in the city.

Noted Journalist ABM Musa stressed the need for providing training to health reporters for increasing their knowledge about health issues so that they can make report in a tangible way.

"We should spread the activities of Kamps and other similar organisations for the benefit of common people," he added.

Naya Diganta Editor Alamgir Mohiuddin urged the government to withdraw health-related Vat to reduce the treatment cost.

He said doctors and health experts should conduct more research to device sophisticated ways and means for the diagnosis and treatment of kidney ailment.

Referring to lack of specialisation in health reporting, Chief Editor of Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury urged both the print and electronic media to develop expertise for an accurate dissemination of the health-related information.

He said doctors and health experts should also cooperate with the media so that reporters could prepare their stories in easy language for better understanding of the common people.

Prof AK Azad Khan said, "We should give priority to the prevention of kidney disease as its treatment is very expensive."

He urged all concerned to build awareness among people about the prevention of the disease.

Prof Firoz Khan said all treatment facilities, including dialysis and kidney transplantation, are available in the country.

Describing the kidney disease a curable one, he urged the print and electronic media to inform people about the reliable facilities that are available in the country for the treatment of kidney ailment.

Prof Jahangir Kabir said nephritis is the principal and diabetes is the second cause of kidney diseases.

"If we could check nephritis and diabetics, we can prevent kidney diseases easily," he added.

Prof Jahangir laid emphasis on collecting kidneys from dead persons to develop the process of kidney transplantation in the country.

Presenting a keynote paper, Kamps Chairman Prof MA Samad said about two crore people are affected by different kidney diseases in Bangladesh while 50 crore people have chronic kidney disease across the world.

He said 15 to 18 percent adult people in the country are affected by chronic kidney disease.

Moderated by Amar Desh Editor Amanullah Kabir, the roundtable was also addressed by President of International Commonwealth Journalists Association Hasan Shahariar, Bureau Chief of Associated Press Farid Hossain, Director of Radio Today Sakil Manjur, Dr Jafrullah Chowdhury, Dr Dabir Ahmed and Dr Arup Ratan Chowdhury.