ESRD in South-East Asia

Abstract

Southeast Asia generally is understood to include the countries of Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Nine of these 11 sovereign states are categorized to have low-to-middle income by the World Bank. Like other regions of the world, the provision of renal replacement therapy (RRT) in developing economies in South-East Asia is limited by the lack of financial and other resources and there are no national reimbursement policies for RRT in many countries. The number of nephrologists in most of these countries remains low. Due to the increasing burden of ESRD treatment, four countries have combined their programs to run a public–private partner initiative to allow more ESRD patients to be treated. While some countries have well-developed registries of ESRD treatment, data are completely unknown in others. Hence, an appraisal of the status of ESRD from only six South-East Asia countries is presented.