A UNIVERSITY don has warned that soaps containing mercury can cause Chronic Kidney Diseases (CKD) in children.

Prof Timothy Adedoyin of the Paediatrics and Child Health Department, College of Health Sciences, University of Ilorin disclosed this yesterday while delivering the 109th Inaugural Lecture of the university.

According to Adedoyin during the lecture moderated by the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof Ishiaq Oloyede, "the use of soap containing mercury in children is a modifiable risk factor in CKD. The soap, like bleaching cream, has mercury which is injurious to the kidney."

He added: "There is no uniform distribution of mercury and since it has poor lipid solubility, it accumulates mostly in the kidneys with insufficient renal excretion resulting in renal damage."

Other identifiable risk factors that endanger the kidney, he said, include the usage of cream containing steroid, excessive use of analgesic and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and inadequate management of diarrhoea and malaria.

He defined CKD as kidney damage manifested by structural or functional abnormalties lasting three or four months with or without decreased glomerular filtration rates.

Adedoyin said the disease, cost effective  to manage, remains one of the most devastating childhood disorders. "It robs them of school hours either due to frequent hospital admissions and follow-up attendance at the clinic," he said.

Adedoyin disclosed that 156 kidney transplants have been done in Nigeria to date, 73 per cent of which were carried out by a private hospital in Lagos.

He put the age range of the recipients at between 13 and 67 years. Besides, he said the graft survival in a year is about 84 per cent, adding that of the 14 that have been transplanted for more than 10 years, only 10 of them are alive.

He urged the Federal Government to emulate countries such as England and Wales where citizens undergo dialysis free of charge and the governments provide transplantation equipment.