TEHRAN (Iran News) –  Some 600 patients with renal failure, under the coverage of Kidney Foundation, have undergone transplantation over the last [Iranian calendar] year (March 2020-March 2021).

A kidney transplant is the transfer of a healthy kidney from a compatible donor to the body of another person with a disabled kidney and is the most promising option for patients with end-stage renal disease, Azam Panahi, the head of the Foundation, has said.

At present, more than 100,000 patients with kidney failure are covered by this foundation, 600 of whom underwent transplantation, she added, IRNA reported on Tuesday.

The population of patients with renal failure in Iran is 320,000.

The first kidney transplant in West Asia was performed in Shiraz, Iran, in 1967.

Mehdi Shadnoosh, the director of the transplantation department at the Ministry of Health, said in February 2019 that there were around 8,600 people in Iran waiting to receive kidney transplants. Plus, 30 thousand patients receive dialysis every day.

It is estimated that, annually, the number of Iranians who receive dialysis grow by three to four thousand, and every round of dialysis costs around 4.5 million rials (around $107) for the healthcare system, said Shadnoosh.

Kidney transplant and dialysis are free services in Iran, so there must be more focus on teaching people the proper preventive methods such as controlling their high blood pressure and diabetes, he added.

According to World Health Organization, a 2015 study revealed that, in 2015, 1.2 million people died from kidney failure, an increase of 32 percent since 2005.

In 2010, an estimated 2.3–7.1 million people with end-stage kidney disease died without access to chronic dialysis. Additionally, each year, around 1.7 million people are thought to die from acute kidney injury. Overall, therefore, an estimated 5–10 million people die annually from kidney disease.

Currently, 50 percent of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients in Iran live with a functional transplanted kidney. The annual number of kidney transplants in Iran has gone from less than 100 transplants in 1986 to 1800 transplants in 2006, and in recent years, the rate of kidney transplants has increased again, with approximately 2500–2700 kidney transplants performed per year.