Solving Kidney Disease In Dry Zone
Prof. Chandre Dharmawardana
Reverse osmosis, and bio-scavengers for cleaning the water and soil in areas affected by Kidney disease
When kidney disease of uncertain origin (CKDU) appeared in the North-central province in the mid-1990s, some commentators hastened to claim that this was bio-terrorism associated with the Eelam wars. Today, a variety of opinions are touted regarding the origin and prevention of the CKDU epidemic. News reports tell us that cases have been noted in other `dry zone’ ares like Hambantota and Jaffna. Places like Jaffna and other dry-zone towns are extremely vulnerable because of the rapidly increasing population while the water table remains limited.
A number of authors have raised the possibility of using special plants that accumulate metal toxins as a means of purifying the water. Others have suggested using reverse osmosis.
Last October when I was in Colombo I gave several talks in symposia on Kidney disease, e.g., one of them was at the Gannoruwa Institute of agriculture, while another symposium was at the Professional Institute in Colombo. I also raised this question of water hayacinth-like plants (water hayacynth, Japan jabara, lotus root etc), or even Murunga, and their capacity to extract and concentrate toxins from polluted water. This point has been raised by many others as well. Also, many of the relevant plans are listed in the Sri Lankan plants website (http://dh-
web.org/place.names/bot2sinhala.html) that I maintain. Read More
