African Research on Kidney Disease begins in Mpumalanga
- Wits University
It’s South African Kidney Awareness Week from 6-10 September and the ARK Consortium has begun a unique African study.
The African Research on Kidney Disease (ARK) Consortium is a collaboration between researchers at centres of excellence in South Africa, Malawi, Uganda, and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
ARK aims to better understand kidney disease in sub-Saharan African populations – working in Uganda and Malawi as well as South Africa – and to determine the burden of kidney disease, its causes, and potential for prevention in these communities.
Dr June Fabian is the co-principal investigator (co-PI) of the South African arm of ARK and a nephrologist (kidney doctor) and clinical researcher at the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre (WDGMC) in Johannesburg.
“The work ARK is doing is unique in Africa because it is population-based. This means we can better understand kidney disease in people living in rural Mpumalanga, rather than relying just on data from high-risk groups and people hospitalized with advanced kidney disease,” says Fabian. “Population-based research gives a good sense of what the burden and risks really are.”
The importance of kidney disease studies in Africa
While the causes of kidney disease are well described in high-income countries, relatively little is known about the risk factors that lead to kidney disease and how common these are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Additionally, severe kidney disease treatment is costly, requiring either chronic kidney dialysis or a kidney transplant.
These medical procedures are often out of reach of the poor or medically under- or uninsured, rendering this condition fatal – which it need not be.
The genetics of advanced kidney disease in rural South Africa
Fabian has led the South African arm of ARK since 2016, working with rural communities around Agincourt in the Bushbuckridge sub-district of Mpumalanga Province.
She works closely with co-investigators Professor Stephen Tollman of the Medical Research Council/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt) and Professor Michèle Ramsay of the Sydney Brenner Institute of Molecular Bioscience (SBIMB) at Wits.
ARK aims to identify genetic risk factors that cause kidney disease in a typical rural population in Agincourt, Mpumalanga.
<